Sins of Our Youth
by TheAeacusProject
Summary: *COMPLETE* After years of peace & quiet following the arrest of Penguin, a new wave of violence across Gotham puts Harvey Bullock in the hospital and prompts Captain Jim Gordon to reinstate the long-disbanded Strike Force to hunt down the culprit. As law and order erodes, 25-year old Bruce Wayne returns from university overseas to a Gotham desperate for a hero...
1. Prologue

**A/N:** First Gotham fic...7 Nov 16 update is some fun extra material/Easter eggs if you're into that sort of thing. If you're here for the first time, no peeking! I don't own 'Gotham' or 'Batman,' nor do I profit from their use. This is all just for fun.

 **Prologue**

"Will these be all, Dr. Thompkins?"

The Gotham City Police Department Medical Examiner doubled-checked her clipboard of notes and quickly walked down the row of three cadavers, checking the tags affixed to the body bags. She verified that the serial numbers and names corresponded with her notes and then looked up at the contracted medical waste disposal worker tasked with the unfortunate job of transporting the bodies.

"Yes, these three only."

"If you could sign here…"

"Gladly. Where? Oh." Dr. Thompkins scribbled quickly on a line at the bottom of his board and handed it back. "Thank you very much; I'll be very glad to get rid of that one." She pointed at the one furthest from her. "It makes me sick just knowing it's here after what he did."

"I'll make sure they're delivered safely to the crematorium and you won't have to worry about them, Doctor. Have a good evening."

The courier grabbed the first gurney and wheeled it down the hall as Dr. Thompkins returned to her desk and finished transcribing her findings from a gruesome double homicide that had come in earlier that morning—a drunken, enraged man stabbed his wife to death before dying at the hand of his teenage son with the same knife. As she worked, a typical October rainstorm pelted the windows of autopsy and masked the sounds of the courier wheeling away the three cadavers.

"Have a good evening, Dr. Thompkins," said the worker as he pulled the final body away. Leslie looked up with a friendly smile and waved good-bye politely.

"Thank God," she whispered under her breath as the body of Jerome Valeska was wheeled out of her care, down the hall, and away from the homicide precinct. Thompkins completed her notes on the separate case, filed them away, and collected her things. She locked autopsy and walked down the hall—in the opposite direction the disposal worker left with the bodies.

* * *

That evening, after making and then cleaning up from a dinner for two that only she attended, Leslie walked out of the bathroom; toothbrush still clenched askew between her teeth, and picked up the phone just before it went to voicemail.

"Hello?" she managed after quickly removing the brush.

"Lee, it's Jim. Something bizarre's happened."

She frowned and sat down on the edge of a barstool. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

Across the city, Detective Jim Gordon frowned and turned around, mobile phone pressed to his ear as he huddled under a tattered awning that did little to protect him from the continuing downpour. He looked across the street at the collapsed storefront, the rubble strewn across both lanes of traffic, and the clusters of sirens that flashed in blues and reds blurred by the rain. Nevertheless, his gaze settled on the delivery van half-buried in what only hours earlier was a small pawnshop. An ambulance slowly trundled away from the accident and across his line of sight, momentarily obscuring the crash.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry I wasn't by for dinner."

Leslie's voice came through laced with worry. "So what's the matter?"

"You signed for those bodies to be transported for cremation today, right?"

"Yes, of course. It was the last thing I did."

Gordon sighed. "Alright, you'll probably have to make a statement as the first thing you do tomorrow. You were the last person to see the delivery guy alive."

Leslie Thompkins squeezed the phone tighter unconsciously and leaned forward. The color drained from her face. "What are you talking about, Jim?"

"I'm looking at the delivery van right now. It's buried in a building on the city limits and the driver's dead."

"And the bodies?"

Gordon turned back away from the crash, his face grim as he pressed the phone to his face. "They're gone, Lee. All three are gone."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Thirteen Years Later**

The tell-tale _clink_ of empty shot glasses being slammed down on the bar didn't travel far beyond the two men seated on stools where the bar curved around next to the ice machine and the shelves of Irish whiskey, but as his old partner flagged down the weathered bartender for another round, Captain Jim Gordon thought there was an odd finality to it. He smiled through the strange feeling and clapped Harvey Bullock on the shoulder as the bartender placed two tumblers on the bar, squirted two dashes of bitters in each glass, tipped a teaspoon of sugar in and splashed water over the two ingredients.

"Please don't say it, you know I hate when you do this."

"Jim, we've been friends a long time, partners even longer—"

"Glad you got that correctly in order this time," muttered Gordon as an aside. The bartender chuckled as he muddled the water, bitters, and sugar before pulling their finest rye bourbon off the shelves to Gordon's right.

Bullock cocked his head, as if irritated. "Ass. I was saying we've been together a long time, and I'd like to think I helped shape you into the best Goddamn captain our division's ever had."

The bartender poured a generous amount of bourbon into each glass before twisting lemon and orange peels together and dropping them in each glass. He plunked a cherry into each drink as well and slid them across to the two cops. "On the house, Harv. For twenty years of being my most faithful patron. Don't you dare think about retiring from that too."

Harvey raised his glass in salute to the bartender and Gordon did the same. "You kidding? I'm going to be here so much you may as well put me on the staff." As the bartender walked away to tend to another detective, Bullock turned to Gordon whose reminiscing smile was receding to a wary one behind a salt-and-pepper goatee with much more salt than Gordon preferred to admit.

"No, Harvey."

With a triumphant grin, Bullock raised his glass and toasted, "To good, Old Fashioned police work!" He took a long sip and smacked his lips.

"Gordon paused and then, so he could be heard by their half of the bar, "To Harvey Bullock!"

As he drank, the echoes of "To Harvey" reverberated around the packed bar—over half the constituents therein carried a badge on them in some form or another.

Gordon placed his drink back on the counter, wiped across his lips, and glanced at Bullock out of the corner of his eye. "There's no way I can talk you into staying a few more months?"

"God, no. I'm done. I know when to walk away, Jim, and that time's now. These last six years have been the most boring of my entire career—and that's all your fault!"

Gordon pretended to look incredulous. "Right, I become Captain and all of a sudden people stopped killing each other. Hardly."

"Yeah, but the cases now are _boring_ ," Bullock whined, as if that explained everything. "Ever since you put the Penguin behind bars and made it stick, there haven't been nearly as many entertaining loonies out there. Sometimes I miss those whack-jobs like that one that electrocuted everyone he came across or that puppet mobster. Now it's just plain old boring homicides."

"Somehow I think you're the first detective who's ever complained about having too many straight-forward cases."

"And you're just about to leave the precinct entirely." Bullock took another long drink and jabbed his hat at Gordon, who was shaking his head somberly. "Don't act like you don't know it's coming. Because it is! You'll be commissioner either just before the election or soon after."

"Not if Councilman Hill wins, I won't be. He and I haven't gotten along since that union function last spring when I accused him of being as dirty as a Narrows sewer drain."

"Well, you can't win them all, Jim. Just because you dethroned the 'King of Gotham,' doesn't mean you magically make corruption go away."

"I know. I just can't stand working for guys like Hamilton Hill. He'd never be caught dead down here in a bar like this. He's much more comfortable in Gotham Heights and the neighborhoods up that direction."

"We're better off not having officials like him in places like Finnigan's, if you ask me, even if he is out of touch with us common folk," Bullock grumbled as he finished his drink. "Mikey, another round!"

Gordon shook his head and sipped at his own drink. "I have to be going as it is. Have to pick up Barbara from her mother's place. I have her for the weekend."

Bullock nodded morosely. "Fine. Say hi to Lee for me. Think I have a chance? She still looks damn good."

Gordon stood and picked his overcoat from the hanger behind them. Shrugging it over his charcoal sports jacket, he patted Harvey on the shoulder. "Not a chance in the world. Take care."

"You too!" Bullock barked as Captain Jim Gordon snaked his way out of the bar with only two or three interruptions and greetings from other officers. Gordon pushed open the door and squinted into the late afternoon sunlight. He crossed the street in the long shadow cast by the bar and the floors and floors of apartments towering above it, unlocking his car door with a quick glance back at the bar before he pulled away and headed across town.

As he rounded the next corner and followed the elevated tracks of the C Line subway, a black van turned the corner in the opposite direction and drove just under the speed limit towards the intersection outside Finnigan's. Seeing minimal oncoming traffic, the driver accelerated and cut across the intersection, pulling up onto the sidewalk outside the bar's trademark stained glass windows. The rear doors swung open and three men in black ski masks piled out, semiautomatic rifles cradled in their arms. The first gunman pulled open the door and the second two entered the bar, rifles raised to their shoulders, and safety mechanisms settled firmly in the 'off' position.

They opened fire on the patrons before anyone had time to draw their service weapon.

Harvey Bullock was awkwardly tumbling off his stool as they opened fire on the packed bar, drawing his revolver and wincing at the pain shooting up from his knee where it'd struck tile during his fall. He poked his head out from around the bar and tried to gauge a clear shot, but there were too many other off-duty detectives, officers, and sergeants in his line of fire. He ducked back behind the bar as another burst of rifle fire chipped wood out of the bar.

The gunmen extended their firing line from the door along the short wall of the restaurant as their accomplices in the van drove forward several feet and pulled the driver's side sliding door back unveiling a mounted .50-caliber gun. The police inside the bar had no forewarning of this second volley and the heavy weapon tore through tables, chairs, bottles, glasses, and flesh indiscriminately. Bullock shouted as molten pain blossomed on his right hip: the bar gave him sufficient cover and concealment from the gunmen at the front of the bar but he was bare to the machine gun perpendicular to them outside.

The three gunmen inside resumed firing in a doubly-deadly crossfire until their guns locked with the bolt to the rear; they were out of ammunition. As one reloaded hastily and resumed providing covering fire, the other two tugged a grenade off the bandoleer around their waist, pulled the pins, and lobbed the explosives across the bar. All three raced through out the door and back into the van; it accelerated away from Finnigan's just as tongues of flame spurted from the bullet-shattered windows.

Barely able to move from his gunshot wound, Bullock stared wide-eyed at the grenade and tried to crawl away. He made it partly behind the bar before it detonated sending a blast wave of heat and shrapnel across the bar. Above his head, the shelves of alcohol shattered, sending new projectiles careening downward. Bullock looked up in shock as a bottle of premium whiskey plummeted towards his head and then everything went black.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

As a single unmarked black van laid siege to the favored watering hole of the GCPD, other small bands of terrorists were striking in equal fervor. Simultaneous to the attack on Finnigan's, a pair of criminals drove a car filled with explosives into a packed gas station, ignoring the long line of vehicles stretching from the pumps and the signs on the sidewalk insisting "OIL RATIONING IN EFFECT" as they drove right through the glass doors of the convenience mart and detonated their payload.

Downtown, a band of marauders opened fire on the sidewalk outside the Gotham Institute of Art and proceeded to ascend the granite steps into the gallery, killing security guards, curators, and visitors without hesitation. Security cameras would show them practicing taking headshots on the paintings in the portrait gallery, using sculptures as blunt instruments to bludgeon victims, and setting the modern art wing ablaze in kerosene. Other paintings were cut violently from their frames and taken as trophies.

In the Diamond District, a group of five murderers and thieves went door-to-door playing Russian roulette with store owners as other accomplices created roadblocks at either end of the street and fired on random commuters and first responders. Those lucky enough to live, were allowed to keep their jewelry. The priceless bracelets, necklaces, earrings, gems, and stones of those not-so-lucky ended up in a canvas bag in the back of another black license plate-less van.

Over the course of twenty minutes, a quiet, golden September afternoon was bathed in the largest wave of random violence in recorded Gotham City history. One perpetrator suffered a non-life threatening injury after falling down some stairs at the Institute of Art and twisting his ankle; otherwise, the response time by law enforcement was insufficient to engage or prevent any of the attacks and not a single assailant was apprehended.

* * *

Jim Gordon arrived at the apartment complex of one Dr. Leslie Thompkins, M.D., eighteen minutes after leaving Finnigan's. His phone had not rung once during the drive.

He pressed the call button under her name on the registry at the front door and contemplated, not for the first time, if her refusing to take his last name when they married had been a bit of foreshadowing of their future separation he missed. His thoughts were interrupted by the twin buzzing of his phone and the gate as she allowed him to come into the building. Gordon entered a waiting elevator and rode it up to the twenty-eighth floor while attempting—unsuccessfully—to answer his cell. The door chimed open and he crossed the well-appointed hallway to Leslie's door.

It opened before he could knock. His ex-wife stared at him with an ashen expression, her kind brown eyes marred by a fear he'd only seen twice before: Once after she was attacked by his crazed fiancée, Barbara Kane, and the second time when she was held hostage by the same woman. But the unstable Barbara was long since dead, leaving Gordon at a loss as to what could disturb the doctor so deeply.

His phone rang again, and as Gordon stepped into the apartment, his right hand fell to the service pistol on his hip and his left raised his phone to his ear. "Captain Gordon."

"Jim? Thank God you're alright." It was the Commissioner. Thompkins waved him into the living room and pointed at the television. "Someone said you were down at Finnigan's and I feared the worst."

"What do you mean, you feared the—" Gordon's words died in his mouth as he finally processed the scene on screen. A news helicopter was circling the bar he left not more than a half hour earlier. A fire engine was parked across the street and paramedics and firemen scurried back and forth on the sidewalk like ants. The banner across the bottom of the channel noted GOTHAM CITY UNDER SIEGE.

"Commissioner, I have to go." Gordon hung up and dropped his arms limply to his sides. Despite the small wording in the top corner of the screen, he felt compelled to ask, "Is this a live feed?"

"Yes. The man across the hall knocked and told me to turn on the news just before you arrived."

"Dad?" Jim whirled to find his daughter walking hesitantly down the hall from the bedrooms with her backpack pulled snugly over both her shoulders, her red hair pulled back in a ponytail, a tell-tale sign she had been reading or working on her computer. "What's wrong?"

The stoic GCPD Captain melted and crossed to his eleven-year old daughter, hugging her tightly and exhaling in relief. "Barbara. Everything's fine, honey."

She frowned and pointed at the television. "Then why is yours and Harvey's favorite place on fire? Why are 'terrorists running amok?'"

Gordon looked back at the live feed and the headline claiming precisely that. The video changed abruptly to show the steps of the Gotham Institute of Art, bodies lying grotesquely beneath the burning second floor windows. Then his daughter's first question finally registered.

Harvey.

Gordon stood and walked over to the window, peering out of it at the street below as he withdrew his mobile and called the station.

"This is Captain Gordon. Detective Harvey Bullock was at Finnigan's as recently as thirty minutes ago. Has he called in?"

"No, Captain. He couldn't."

"What do you mean he couldn't?"

"They found him unconscious behind the bar, bleeding out. He's en route to Gotham General right now. He was one of the few live ones left."

Gordon turned back to Leslie, his own face as pale as hers and his whole body rigid. The lieutenant at the precinct clicked off and Gordon put his phone back in his pocket. "Barbara, put your shoes on, we're going."

Leslie frowned. "Is Harvey okay?"

Gordon looked at Leslie helplessly and shrugged. Not trusting himself to repeat the report, he merely said, "Gotham General."

"I can get us there in ten minutes if the lights cooperate. Give me your keys."

Gordon handed them over silently, mulling over the last words of his lieutenant as they rode the elevator downstairs.

 _One of the few live ones left…_

* * *

Dr. Thompkins glanced across the front seat at Jim Gordon, then into her rearview mirror at her daughter and found both of them looking out the window with identical strained looks on their faces. It wasn't easy at first, calling her daughter by the same name with which she associated so much pain, violence, and fear, despite what Barbara had done with her last moments to redeem herself in Jim's eyes, but maybe she'd underestimated him as before today she'd only ever thought of that name in the most loving way as they raised their daughter, first together and then separately when their jobs took them in different directions: his as Captain requiring more and more time despite the long respite in violent crime (by Gotham's perverse standard, at least) and hers as the lead physician at Gotham Children's, a role she cherished after five years as ME for the GCPD. But that, too, grew tedious and now she was about to embark on a new adventure, yet again.

Dr. Thompkins braked as the long line of cars snaked towards the traffic light: her estimate of ten minutes elapsed after three blocks. The city's avenues were snarled as citizens tried to get away from the carnage and make it home to their loved ones. Silence persisted in the car despite her thoughts being interrupted by the traffic.

"Barbara, why don't you tell your father about how your project went today?" Leslie turned and smiled encouragingly at their daughter as she returned from her thoughts beyond the windows of the car and rummaged in her backpack. The doctor elbowed her former husband and arched an eyebrow.

Gordon cleared his throat and looked accusingly at Leslie. "Right, that was today. Er, how'd it go?"

The young girl produced a folder with her favorite literary character on the cover and withdrew the grade sheet from the assignment. Handing it forward proudly, she announced, "I got a 97! Highest in the grade! My teacher says that computer is going to be entered in the state competition next month."

"What does it do again, sweetie? You know I don't understand all the technology stuff like you do?" Dr. Thompkins winked at her daughter and then turned her attention back to the road as they passed through the light and she fought against traffic to make a turn onto the freeway. Gordon looked up from the grade sheet and gave her a grateful smile—he'd completely forgotten what the project was in the first place.

"It's a database investigator. It's a computer program I made that will search through a database for you in less than thirty seconds! The database can be millions of documents and it will sort through it super quick. I demonstrated it with the police department's case files for the last twenty years," Barbara announced simply. "I asked it to find any mention of your name, Dad, and it came up with 6,431 occurrences in eleven point three seconds."

Gordon twisted around to look at his beaming daughter, shocked. "You used what?! I didn't give you access to those. Those are private, Barbara."

"You didn't have to give me access. I just let myself into the database. Those are bad people, I didn't think they'd care. I got access to Mom's hospital's records too, but those are sick kids and that wouldn't have been very nice," she concluded with a frown.

Gordon looked up amused as Leslie whirled in her seat to look at Barbara. "You have access to what?!"

Their daughter looked down at the folder in her hands, upset. "I know I'm not supposed to access private things. I didn't look at any records, I promise…even though I got an A like you said I had to, does this mean I can't go to Mom's fundraiser?"

Captain Gordon looked over at the doctor. "Are you still going to have it tomorrow night with what happened today?"

Leslie frowned and nodded slowly. "I think so. If we don't then we're telling whoever attacked Gotham today that they succeeded in scaring us. Besides, the clinic opens on Monday regardless. I'd love to have both of you there," she added with a smile.

Gordon smirked in spite of himself and turned to his daughter. "Do you still have that dress from the Policeman's Ball that Mr. Alfred hosted in the summer?"

"YES!"

Dr. Thompkins couldn't help but laugh in concert with Gordon as they pulled into the entrance for Gotham General. It was moments like this, she told herself sadly, that she missed being a family.

* * *

Jim Gordon led his ex-wife and his daughter out of the elevator and through a set of swinging doors into the Intensive Care Unit as two policemen snapped to attention and held the doors open for them. The three of them followed the harsh glare of fluorescent lights down the white-tiled hall to a small gathering of officers and suit-clad detectives. In the center of the group was the diminutive Commissioner, who waved Gordon over immediately.

"Jim, I'm so glad you're alright. I got here about ten minutes ago."

"How's Harvey?"

The Commissioner's face clouded over as he led Gordon to a window into one of the treatment rooms. As Gordon stepped forward and placed a hand on the glass, leaning as close as he could in stunned silence, his boss answered in a detached way, "The doctors aren't sure. He lost a lot of blood and they did emergency surgery when he arrived. He's stable, but they had to induce a coma. They're not sure if he'll come out of it."

"When, you mean," Gordon corrected with a swallow. His hand clenched into a fist and he tapped it against the glass. "He'll come out of it. He'd better."

"I'm going to call a press conference for Monday," the Commissioner continued, as if he hadn't heard Gordon, his hands plunged into his pockets as he stared at Bullock's bedridden form through the glass. "I'm going to announce the reinstatement of Strike Force and you're going to lead it again to figure out who murdered over a hundred people including dozens of cops in less than a half hour."

"Over one hundred?" echoed Gordon as he turned to look at the Commissioner.

"They're still finding more and I'd expect some injured to not make a full recovery. It's bad, Jim. I need Strike Force."

Gordon rubbed his jaw. "Nearly all of the kids we picked for it last time died. We got some results, but it wasn't pretty."

"I'm not looking for a Goddamn beauty pageant, Captain. Just find whoever did this."

The Commissioner strode back down the hallway towards the elevators without another word, leaving Gordon to stare at Harvey alone.

 **A/N:** More to follow shortly! If you're onboard, please let me know! Even if you don't follow, fav, or review, thank you for taking the time to read!


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

According to the gold pocketwatch nestled in Alfred Pennyworth's left hand, the time was 8:58, which made the glistening Wayne Enterprises Jetstream taxiing down the runway two minutes early for its arrival at Gotham Corporate Airfield. He pocketed the watch and clasped his hands behind his back, waiting for the plane to come to a complete halt in its hangar. As the plane's tail cleared the large bay opening, airport employees hurried to close the door immediately. GCPD cruisers raced onto the tarmac in front of the hangar in an additional show of force out of sight of Alfred or those onboard the plane.

Alfred looked up as the hatch just aft of the cockpit hissed and began to lower outward, descending into a series of steps grooved into the inside of the door. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of an empty doorway; after a pause, a solitary figure filled the space and began to move purposefully down the steps, a black leather messenger bag hooked over one shoulder and pinned to his opposite hip over a charcoal button-down with an unbuttoned collar.

The man approaching ran a hand through already-tousled brown hair and clenched the strap of his bag with both hands as he paused a few feet from Alfred. The butler ticked his eyes upwards, noting the surprising height differential and sturdier build from the teen he bid farewell to nine years previous. The younger man's face was somber for a moment, then split into a genuine smile.

"It's good to see you again, Alfred."

Exhaling visibly, the butler mustered a shaky smile and reached out a hand. "Likewise, Master Bruce. Likewise."

The young man noted the extended hand and stepped inside it, swiftly embracing the older man and clapping him twice on the back before stepping away. Something behind Alfred caught his eye and he moved smoothly past the butler.

"A new Rolls…spending freely while I was gone, were you, Alfred?" he quipped in a voice deeper than Alfred remembered.

"Spending necessarily, as it were. The old Bentley had brake problems. I can assure you this one's ride is smoother by far."

"And the escort?" Bruce looked back over his shoulder and pointed at the GCPD cruiser sitting in the hangar in front of the Rolls-Royce four-door, its engine idling in preparation for departure.

"It's been a long day in Gotham, Master Wayne, about which I'll be happy to inform you once we're on our way home." He gestured towards the champagne-colored extended wheelbase luxury sedan and strode past Wayne to open the suicide door. "The attendants will deposit your luggage in the boot and then we'll be off."

Alfred closed the door firmly and walked around the hood of the car, noting the crisp efficiency of the hangar crew at unloading Master Wayne's luggage and storing it in the rear of the car. He nodded in satisfaction, unbuttoned his overcoat, and slipped behind the wheel of his right-hand drive import.

"It's almost as if I never left LSB, Alfred. I should've known."

"How is London, if you don't mind my asking?"

Bruce looked out the window at the jet as the car began moving forward, following the GCPD cruiser out of the hangar through a door in the rear wall, and onto the access loop servicing the airport. "I think it rains there more than it does here, which is a feat in and of itself."

"That it is, Master Bruce. And you're done with your studies for good?"

"You mean am I back for good, or am I leaving on another sojourn?" Bruce chuckled to himself and played with the clasp on his bag. "I'm back to stay, Alfred. Don't worry about that…So what happened today that made the GCPD feel like you needed an escort to pick me up?"

Alfred glanced in the rear view. "The GCPD didn't; Captain Gordon did."

" _Captain_ Gordon?!" Bruce's eyebrows raised slightly and he nodded knowingly. "I suppose that makes sense. I'm surprised he's not commissioner yet."

"I'm sure that will follow in due time, Master Bruce, although given your history together I'm sure he would insist on your addressing him as 'Jim.'"

"Perhaps he would. Why's he so concerned?"

"There were a series of coordinated attacks across Gotham today. They're estimating deaths in the seventies or eighties and three times as many wounded. Captain Gordon's old partner is in a coma."

Bruce leaned forward. "Which hospital, Alfred?"

"Master Bruce, Captain Gordon said we are to go straight back to—"

"Which. Hospital."

"Gotham General, sir."

"Then we're taking a detour to see Detective Bullock first."

Alfred Pennyworth sighed as he floored the accelerator and continued rocketing down the freeway towards downtown Gotham instead of following the squad car as it exited for Gotham Heights. "Very good, sir."

* * *

Jim Gordon stood just inside the automatic doors at the front of Gotham General, hands on his hips, as a beige sedan that cost more than his last five annual salaries rolled to a halt and Alfred Pennyworth emerged from the driver's seat to open the rear door. Pennyworth looked just as he had when Jim had seen him last at the Policeman's Ball that summer, which Alfred hosted under pretense of 'being entirely too bored for my own good, Captain Gordon.'

Gordon, after seeing the butler speaking in hushed tones with Leslie for the majority of that evening, suspected his motives weren't quite so charitable, but it had been a well-attended and successful event. The former detective brushed the jealousy aside and focused on appraising the butler. As always, it seemed he was straining to keep untamed ferocity at bay just below the polished appearance he presented.

The rear door of the car swung open and Bruce Wayne stepped out, looking surprisingly alert for someone arriving at a hospital after a seven hour plane flight. The doors slid open and Wayne entered the lobby, moving towards Gordon with an air of confidence he found difficult to reconcile with the hesitant but brilliant teen he remembered. The firm grasp of his handshake and the possessive but calming hand he placed on Gordon's bicep as he did so were similarly out of touch with Gordon's memory.

"I regret that we're meeting under such dark circumstances, but it is good to see you, Captain Gordon."

Jim attempted to mask his surprise and unease looking up at the younger man with a smile. "You too, Bruce. It's good to have you back."

The two began to walk deeper into the hospital, Gordon leading them to the elevators. He noted Bruce's backward glance confirming Alfred was remaining with the car. Old habits died hard, Gordon mused privately.

"Things don't seem to have changed much if today's any indication," Bruce commented bitterly. "All I read in the papers was how Gotham was improving—for the first time in a generation people were coming back to the city instead of fleeing it."

"They were. But even with Penguin in jail and the mob's hold loosened, there was always something lurking beneath the surface. I guess today it got out." Gordon punched the button for the lift. "Which papers would those have been?"

Bruce shrugged. "Hong Kong. Tokyo…Beijing, Bangkok, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Athens, Milan, Paris, Zurich, London. I had a devil of a time learning Cantonese, but Arabic, Italian, and French weren't too terrible. It's difficult finding quality papers in English in some places," he opined as if that justified learning half a dozen languages.

Gordon arched an eyebrow. "Sure."

The elevator chimed; they entered and Gordon selected ICU's floor. "So, you just went wherever you wanted?"

"I had…things I needed to learn. I went where I could learn them best." Bruce scratched at the back of his neck. "I wasn't always a quick study. But I did manage to come home with a couple participation awards. I completed an undergraduate curriculum at Cambridge in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and my graduate work at the London School of Business."

Gordon wondered if his eyebrow would be permanently arched as he tried not to gape. He opted for jesting to cover his discomfort, nudging Bruce in the arm while joking, "So you filled out from hauling all your books around then."

Wayne turned, not an ounce of irony in his voice as he calmly and matter-of-factly announced, "I mastered three martial arts before my eighteenth birthday and spent three months learning Krav Maga during summer holidays last year as cross-training for heavyweight crew."

The elevator chimed once more saving Gordon from being unable to reply. He led the way onto Bullock's floor. "Harvey would be honored knowing you came straight to see him. He'd never admit it, but it'd make him happy."

The duo rounded a corner and Bruce frowned. "I expected Dr. Thompkins to be here with you."

"Ah, she and I, uh, aren't—"

"My apologies, Captain Gordon; I didn't mean to—"

Gordon smiled awkwardly (he chastised himself for being unable to do anything else), "You couldn't have known, Bruce. We're on good terms and she was here earlier. She had some last minute preps to make for tomorrow evening."

"What's tomorrow evening?"

"There's a gala being held by the Gotham Health Administrators Council for Lee. She's opening up a free clinic in Hell's Crucible to help provide adequate health care to those unable to afford treatment at the larger hospitals, especially disadvantaged youth. I'm sure she'd love for you to be there."

Jim slowed as they reached the window into Harvey's room. They stood silently, his offer floating between them as Bruce looked at Bullock's comatose form. The tendons in his neck twitched and went taught; the anger and frustration at yet another acquaintance hurt by Gotham radiated off the twenty-five year old Wayne scion.

"Will he recover?" Wayne whispered despite there being no one else around.

"The doctor's aren't sure when or if he'll come out of the coma. They're hopeful he will, but these things have to work themselves out. He was going to retire next week."

"Damn." Wayne shook his head sadly. "He was a great detective."

Gordon nodded, "Yeah, he was. Still is."

Wayne turned and started walking back towards the elevators. Gordon hurried to match his longer stride. They rode back downstairs in poignant silence. As they approached the sliding doors in the lobby, Bruce stopped and turned to Gordon.

"I'll be there tomorrow night, at Dr. Thompkins' event. Where is it, did you say?"

"Ah, I didn't. It's at the Gotham Arms. They just finished renovating it and—"

"And I'm sure Alfred will know where it is." Bruce shook his head in bemusement. "I need to brush up on my Gotham landmarks; it's been a long time. Truth be told, I'm exhausted. But I'm glad you were here, Captain Gordon."

Gordon extended a hand once more and their shake this time was much closer to that of friends than before, though he wasn't sure if that was Bruce's intention or just his imagination after the day's events. "Welcome back, Bruce."

* * *

Bruce was, coincidentally, also the name of the senior night watchman at the Gotham Museum of Natural History several miles to the east of the hospital. Heavy-set, balding, and approaching the government's 'retirement age' with no career end in sight, besides his given name, the only thing he shared with the heir to the Wayne fortune was a penchant for being utterly unable to keep his property secure and free of intruders. The security guard patrolled slowly and loudly around the top floor of the museum, half-heartedly shining his flashlight into the dark recesses of the reptile wing before pressing the button for the elevator with a meaty finger and descending towards the main floor guard desk.

Above his head, on the far side of the rotunda, a single glass pane was painstakingly traced and cut with a diamond-edged blade; the burglar lunged forward after the glass, snaring it in mid-air just as Bruce the night guard entered the elevator and turned around to select his floor and press the 'Door Close' button several times to expedite the process. Leaning precariously through the window, the burglar resumed her regular breathing routine as the doors closed and he was out of sight. She withdrew the cut glass and placed it on the gravel rooftop beside her before hopping through the opening and landing in a silent crouch next to a display of exotic birds from South America, one arm outstretched for balance.

Standing languorously, the cat burglar surveyed the top floor of the museum from beneath a thin hoodie, green irises piercing the dim light. To her right lay the reptile hall; directly across from the alligators and snakes, around the center circle descending down to the main hall below, was the entrance to the special exhibit hall. Smirking, the intruder stalked from shadow to shadow along the wall to the gated entrance. Crouching again, she withdrew a homemade lockpicking tool from her pocket and set to work, making sure to remain out of sight of the doorway.

Moments after beginning to tinker with it, the padlock unlocked and was deposited on the ground behind a pillar. Standing and pivoting, the burglar balanced up on her toes and, deftly, quietly, began to push the gate open with her other foot, keeping her face hidden from view of the camera she knew to be positioned perfectly to capture every person entering the exhibit. When the gate was as far open as she could push it with a single foot, the burglar pirouetted and pressed herself against the side of a pillar, waiting for any sort of alarm or sound of movement from below indicating that the two guards on night duty were actually watching the live CCTV feeds.

Satisfied she was not compromised; the burglar slipped a matte black disk from her hip, pressed a button on the top of it, and slid it along the floor into the exhibit hall.

"One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three—" the intruder whispered and was interrupted by a small pop as the tiny EMP fried the camera preventing her from making a clean entrance. Smirking once again, Selina Kyle turned and walked into the special exhibit hall, black-leather glove tipped fingers tracing the glass on the displays. "A girl's best friend, huh?"

She came to a stop in the middle of the space, circling the exhibit's centerpiece: a massive necklace adorned with hundreds of finely cut diamonds and a teardrop-shaped, vivid sapphire pendant ringed with yet more diamonds. Withdrawing her diamond-treated blade once more, Selina adjusted the swinging arm and spun the blade in a perfect circle before pulling the circle straight out of the upright case. Separating her tool from the glass, she returned her attention to the jewels within the case. Carefully reaching in, noting with smug satisfaction her EMP had disabled the pressure sensors in the case as well as the camera above, Selina extracted the necklace and held it up in the moonlight to admire. With her other hand, she unzipped a specially lined hidden pocket on the inside of her hoodie and then slowly deposited the necklace into the pocket.

The _ding_ of the elevator broke the silence in the museum and jolted Selina into action. From her reconnaissance of the museum over the last two weeks, she had exactly eight seconds to leave the exhibit and be back on the roof.

Bruce the night guard was picking his teeth, one eye squinted shut as the doors to the elevator opened on the third floor of the Natural History Museum; thus, he barely registered the flash of movement across the rotunda when the doors slid open seven and a half seconds later. Blinking, he stepped out of the lift and shone his flashlight around the circle. All the gates were in place and none of the sculptures were missing that he could see. He turned off his flashlight and turned to wander through the reptile hall again.

From her vantage point above, Selina watched with a mix of relief and satisfaction. She patted the necklace hidden inside her hoodie and turned, sprinting towards the edge of the roof before hurtling off of it and landing in stride on the next rooftop.

"All in a night's work."


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N** : This is tough to post because of what happened this weekend, but this might be the last post I make for a bit. I plotted out the entire story before I started writing and in no way do I mean to belittle or parody the horrific events that unfolded in Paris yesterday with the contents of this or any other chapter. Thank you to all of those who read, faved, followed, and reviewed the first few chapters! Hopefully some of you are still onboard.

Oh, and in case it wasn't abundantly clear, I'm just doing this for fun. Gotham isn't mine.

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

"…all the talk this evening is the speculated return to Gotham social life of none other than billionaire orphan Bruce Wayne, whose departure from his home city nearly a decade ago is _shrouded_ in mystery. And he may be here tonight…"

"…billionaire and heir to the largest conglomeration in _the world_ , Bruce Wayne, rumored to make his first public appearance tonight…"

"…at the Gotham Arms Hotel where we expect _Bruce Wayne_ to arrive at any moment…"

"They emphasize the most random words," the doctor grumbled under her breath.

"I'm sorry?" asked the second doctor standing outside the entrance to the gala.

She smiled. "I said 'I hope there's nothing up my nose.'" Dr. Leslie Thompkins rolled her eyes and turned back to the next guest approaching the receiving line. She was only catching snippets from the legion of news crews, web reporters, and tabloid photographers as she smiled and greeted every guest arriving at the gala; however, despite her reservations at having a simple celebration turned into a media circus, she was also grateful for the considerable publicity. She lost count of the interviews she'd provided after half a dozen, but as long as mention of the Gotham Health System's first at-risk youth clinic was mentioned enough times, the circus would be worth the inconvenience.

A flash of movement in the corner of her vision caught her attention and Dr. Thompkins turned to peer into the corner of the ballroom behind her. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, but before she could cross and talk to the object of her surprise, the clamor in the hall rose several levels.

At the far end of the hall, a tall, broad-shouldered brown-haired man in a Saville Row-tailored navy blue suit, white button-down, platinum-streaked-with-blue tie, and triple-tipped white pocket square fidgeted with his sterling silver square cuff links as cameras turned to blind him with their flashes. Bruce Wayne smiled politely, waved once, and caught Leslie's eye. Relief swept over him and he strode confidently past the cavalcade of reporters.

"Dr. Thompkins, it's a pleasure to see you again." He extended a hand and was momentarily caught off guard as she wrapped him in a friendly hug.

"Welcome back, Bruce." Leslie smiled warmly and stepped back. She turned to Wayne's companion and extended a hand. "And as for you, Alfred, I hope you don't plan on getting me into trouble like you did over the summer."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Doctor." he said softly; his apologetic tone was belied by a small smile that Thompkins let slide. She turned back to Bruce.

"Alfred tried to keep me up-to-date on all the places you were travelling, but I couldn't keep them straight. Are you sure you won't get bored, now that you're back in Gotham?"

Bruce smirked. "There's more than enough here to keep me busy day and night…and it would seem you're in the same position. This was all your doing?"

"Ah, no, my colleague—" Dr. Thompkins turned to introduce her partner in founding the clinic, but found him missing. "I apologize, he seems to have wandered off. I'm opening the clinic with another doctor, Hugo Strange. He grew up in The East End and being able to work with the disadvantaged youth of Gotham has long been a dream of his. He's a psychologist now, one of the best. I'm sure you'll meet him before the night's through."

"I'll keep an eye out for him. It's great what you're doing, Dr. Thompkins, helping the children of Gotham…" he trailed off, his eyes gazing past her into some distant memory for a moment. He blinked and smiled sadly. "A lot of them could use help they don't even realize they need. Anyway, I think we'll head inside. Don't want to hold up the line."

"Could you?" Leslie laughed and waved them inside. "And Bruce? It's Leslie, now, I think."

Wayne nodded his head in acknowledgement and glided into the ballroom. His gaze swept across the room, taking in the crowd. Near the back, he could barely make out Jim Gordon talking to a couple politician-types, but he noticed the majority of the crowd were medical professionals and doctors. Unbuttoning his jacket, Bruce continued to look around, noting exits from the room, a couple security guards standing idly in corners, and two technicians working on the sound system on the stage at the front of the room.

"I'm going for a drink, Alfred. Enjoy yourself, will you?"

"Very good, Master Bruce."

Bruce began to thread his way towards the bar, pausing periodically to greet people he'd never seen before in his life. He stepped up to the bar and scanned the shelf behind the staffer working the bar.

"Dry beefeater's martini, straight. One olive." The staffer nodded politely and turned to his task as Wayne turned to look out at the crowd. He felt another attendee approach the bar to his right, just out of view.

"For you, miss?" asked another staffer just as the first returned with Bruce's drink. He turned away from the woman and withdrew a 50-dollar bill from his breast pocket to pass across as a tip.

"I'll have whatever he ordered," she purred as Wayne took a cautionary sip of his martini. He blinked at the strength of the drink and nodded approvingly—

The woman next to him gasped in surprise. Bruce set his drink down slowly before turning and raising his left hand up above the level of the bar, her wrist clasped firmly between his fingers, and his wallet balanced between slender fingers.

"Let me guess, your ability to eat is still a good cause." Bruce turned and looked down at the woman next to him, her bright more-green-than-hazel eyes staring back at him with a mixture of astonishment, rage, and betrayal. "It's good to see you again, Selina."

Bruce extracted his wallet from her fingers and let her go, placing the wallet back in his back pocket without breaking eye contact. She jerked her hand back; Bruce couldn't help but follow its movement as she smoothed out invisible wrinkles in her calf-length black dress—a dress that accentuated curves previously known only to his imagination. Some things changed dramatically in nine years; the hard edge to her gaze so completely at odds with her soft features was exactly as he recalled, as was the untamable hair, its curls ringing her face and falling to her shoulders.

Memories chased one another through Bruce's mind, just as he'd chased the young woman in front of him over so many rooftops and balconies and trellises—memories and moments racing not to a photo finish, but a fiery crash in the final turn. A bartender set her drink down and time seemed to slow further. Simultaneously, eyes still locked, they both extended a hand, hoisted their drinks without looking, and started drinking.

Seconds later, two empty martini glasses clinked against the bar and Bruce felt a considerable buzz course through his system. Selina smirked and cocked an eyebrow in challenge.

"I didn't believe the rumors you were back."

"So you came to see for yourself? Whose invitation did you swipe to get in, or did you just come in through the back door?"

"You know windows are much more my style." There was a playful undertone in her retort, but it vanished as she picked a sleek leather clutch off the bar and withdrew a ticket. "But I was actually invited, this time. Don't flatter yourself thinking I'm here because of you."

She leaned forward on her toes, one hand sliding sensuously around his neck as she pulled his ear down closer to her lips. "I go where there's easy prey, and this is the best game in town."

Selina pulled away and took a step back, intending to leave Bruce standing alone at the bar, but as she took a step she was tugged backwards, too stunned by his quick reflexes and ability to intercept her a second time to resist. Her eyes flickered from her wrist up to Bruce's conflicted face, his sharp jaw set determinedly but his eyes disappointed.

"I'm just a mark now? We were friends, Selina. I, I thought—"

"You thought what?" she spat, her surprise morphing instantly into defensive hostility. "That I'd be sitting here, waiting for you to return so we could pick up where we left off? What drugs did you do while you were gone? I want them."

"That's not funny, Selina."

"Yeah? Well, neither was leaving me without saying good-bye. You were…we were…" She tried to laugh, the sound laced with so much pain, heartache, and resignation Bruce flinched. "I didn't matter to you then; why would I think I mattered now? Welcome back, Bruce. Do us both a favor: don't come looking for me this time."

Selina tugged free, disappearing into the crowd of donors, doctors, and Gotham socialites and leaving Bruce standing motionless by the bar as he watched the criss-cross pattern of her dress move farther and farther away from him. He swallowed and turned back to the bar.

"Alfred?" Bruce addressed the man sitting not ten feet away at the corner of the bar, a glass of scotch in hand. He closed the distance and sat down next to him while simultaneously ordering a second drink.

"Was that Ms. Kyle, or did your charming personality work its wonders on someone else in the half hour since we arrived?"

Bruce sighed and shook his head. "I'm not sure exactly what I expected to happen when I saw her again, but it wasn't that."

"Hell hath no fury, Master Bruce."

The younger man tried to laugh and ended up wincing instead. "You're lucky you only caught the end of it."

"Not lucky," Alfred said with a wink. "Just impeccable timing."

Bruce was lifting his second martini to propose a toast as an explosion shook the building, dust falling like snow from the walls and ceiling. The ballroom went dark as the building lost power; screams and shouts of terror pierced the silence that followed the blast. Seconds later, the bone-chilling chatter of machine gun fire stoked the screams to higher decibels.

"What were you saying about timing, Alfred?"

"I forgot already; old age," the butler quipped as the two of them both climbed over the counter and crouched down behind the bar. Bullets riddled the wall, shattering bottles of liquor that cascaded down the wall, over the stacks of glasses, and onto the floor at their feet.

"We have to find Dr. Thompkins," Bruce yelled firmly as they shuffled towards the other end of the bar, squeezing past the bartenders who wanted no part in the carnage unfolding feet away from them. Emergency lights winked into existence above the handful of exits to the room. Bruce poked his head around the end of the bar, assessing the turmoil in the ballroom with their faint light casting grotesque shadows on the walls.

Three gunmen were standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the stage to his right, directly opposite the door from which he'd entered. One stood at each exit along that far wall in the corners while two more strode through the tables and silent auction displays littering the large open space of the room.

"I'll cover you, Master Bruce; draw their fire." Alfred produced a pistol, racking the slide back quickly to chamber a round as he pulled his charge back behind the bar. The gunfire died down as the gunmen established their control over the event.

"There's eight of them, and two of us, one unarmed. Those are not favorable odds any way you look at it," Bruce said in a huff. "I saw four GCPD squad cars out front when we arrived. We should wait for—the explosion was an attack on them so they couldn't respond."

"That's certainly very likely, innit? We're on our own."

As if the universe were out to contradict him continually that evening, the loud report of a pistol echoed across the room. Alfred pivoted out from behind the bar, firing at the attacker blocking a side exit who was bringing his weapon up to engage a target on the opposite side of the room. Alfred fired twice while his presence was still undetected and the gunmen collapsed without firing. Bruce exploded out from behind the bar, crossing the distance to the nearest gunman by a dinner table, tackling him and slamming him into the ground, using the tables as cover from the hail of bullets that followed from the gunmen on the stage.

Pistols and machine guns exchanged fire as Bruce struggled to disarm his opponent, the burly attacker writhing on his back as he tried to escape. Wayne dug his knees into the attacker's sides and twisted, prying the gun from his gasp. Breathing heavily, Bruce brought the butt of the gun down on the man's nose, eliciting a shout of pain and a torrent of blood as the cartilage and bone were crushed. Tossing the gun aside, Bruce punched him twice, knocking him out. He rose to a crouch and took stock of the situation in the ballroom.

Jim Gordon was firing at the stage from the far side of the ballroom, his position behind an overturned silent auction display providing good cover. Alfred was firing on the move as he neared the main entrance to the ballroom. Bullets tore into the table to Bruce's left: the other roving gunman had found him. Bruce dove and crawled as quickly as he could under two table and around some chairs, trying to keep some protection between him and the gunman while still closing the distance. The gunman was stepping past a group of frightened socialites when one in a black dress rose, her hand a blur as it chopped into his neck. He crumpled to the floor as the blood flow to his brain momentarily slowed and in that time his unexpected assailant gained a position of strength and finished the job, choking him out.

Bruce fought the urge to yell out to Selina as she picked up the gunman's rifle and turned it against the three—two now, Bruce noted—gunmen still on the stage at the front of the room. As she began taking calculated (and extremely accurate) shots, Bruce felt goosebumps ripple along his arms. He reminded himself not to cross Selina any further than he already had done.

"Bruce!" The shout came from over his left shoulder; Alfred was wedged on the far side of the main doorway, pistol steadied against the doorframe as he fired at the gunmen. "Bruce, come on!"

He looked back at Selina and Jim, both firing at the attackers—not for an instant making an effort to get out of harm's way. "Go on, Alfred. Find Dr. Thompkins!"

"Don't be a hero, kid!" Wayne balked as Selina rebuked him for trying to help without even looking at him. She fired off controlled pairs at the stage, slowly walking backwards and maneuvering around tables and chairs innately; within moments she was crouching next to Bruce. He was still smarting from the use of her old belittlement when her rifle clicked ominously and she was out of ammunition.

"I don't plan on sitting still. If you won't listen to the gorilla, at least listen to me?" she extended a hand.

Bruce sighed and ducked as Alfred and the gunmen exchanged fire directly over his head. "He's not a gorilla."

"Look, I don't care, alright? They're covering us so we can get out. So let's get out." She shook her extended hand vigorously. "Come on!"

Nodding in resignation, Bruce took her hand and let Selina guide him in a serpentine fashion, running in a stooped position between tables before bursting from cover and racing to the doorway where Alfred was still taking cover. Bruce and Selina skidded to safety on the opposite side of the entrance—and nearly collided with Dr. Thompkins in the process.

"Leslie; are you alright?" Bruce crouched down and helped her to slump up against the wall. She was favoring her left shoulder and wincing in pain.

"I took a ricochet in the shoulder, but I'll be okay. It's not life threatening."

"We still shouldn't linger here."

"Is Jim still in there?" She grimaced and tried to move to peek inside the ballroom, but Bruce restrained and sheltered her.

"He can take care of himself. Selina, could you give me a hand…" Bruce trailed off as he looked up to find himself the only young adult in the hall.

"She's gone, Master Wayne, and I suggest we follow her lead, yeah?"

The sound of heavy footsteps further down the hall drew their attention; a group of heavily armored police officers behind riot shields were advancing towards them. Alfred fired off his last couple rounds as he shuffled across the doorway to where Bruce and Leslie were crouched. He dropped the gun and helped the doctor to her feet. The police officers pushed past them and into the ballroom as a medic and a trooper broke off to see to Dr. Thompkins. She patted Bruce's shoulder apologetically as the medic plunged a syringe into her arm.

"Maybe I should stop organizing galas."

Bruce smiled, trying to balance supporting his friend with a feeling of eminent frustration. "It's not your fault, Leslie. It's what Gotham does best."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Captain Jim Gordon hated press conferences. He hated the media in general; as a rule, the only professionals he distrusted more than the horde currently seated in front of him were lawyers. Gordon's gaze twitched from side to side at the line of suits along each wall. Lawyers and reporters in one room together: His worst nightmare come true—at least, it may have been such just a week ago.

As of a couple days ago, his greatest fear manifested was now lying in a coma at Gotham General.

Gordon stood and smoothed his tie while taking the two steps forward to the podium. He gave the crowd assembled in the press room at City Hall a cursory scan, but found nothing amiss. He looked down, flipping open the file in front of him and bringing his breathing under control. Whether it was interrogating murderers and rapists by himself late in the evening or pursuing thieves into dimly lit abandoned condominiums, Captain Gordon never felt his pulse race or saw his hands glisten with sweat. After five seconds of standing in front of the media, he could barely breathe.

Gordon fiddled with the microphone, adjusting it to the proper height, and clearing his throat.

"Good morning." He paused to congratulate himself silently on at least starting out sans nausea before continuing with his remarks. "The last 48 hours have witnessed a tide of violence not seen in over a decade. We have lost fathers and sons, mothers and daughters; brothers and sisters, friends and family have been torn from our grasp without so much as a good-bye or a warning."

Gordon turned the page of his prepared remarks, imagining the GCPD speechwriters huddled around the small CRT television tube at their cluster of desks upstairs outside the Commissioner's office. They would be reciting every word, every inflection with him, injecting impassioned commentary whenever he made a crucial point or royally screwed up. Their score cards hung on the break room corkboard just above the three pots of black coffee—Gordon's previous two speaking engagements were tied for the worst scores in the last six months.

He had promised Harvey (who, for his part, kept breathing with help from the machines next to him when Gordon practiced the speech at 5 that morning before heading to City Hall. Jim took it as tacit approval.) that this speech wouldn't be forgotten or mocked. Steeling himself anew, Gordon forged ahead.

"Nobody has escaped these attacks. They are senseless acts, indiscriminate in their choice of targets or their cost of life. Like never before have we been reminded that the dark shroud of terror falls not just on one class of our society, but on all equally. The elderly, the infirm; the young, those coming-of-age; public servants carrying out their jobs and private citizens just trying to escape the pressures of their daily lives—all were slain without remorse in the multiple attacks over the last two days.

"We will not let these terrorists and criminals walk all over the rule of law and stir within Gotham the clouds of fear that once hung low and ominous over our city. For years, all of us have worked hand-in-hand to raise our city above the malaise that threatened to smother it into infamy and the bygones of history. We sent away violent criminals, cleaned up our streets. Broken windows were replaced and buildings that once gazed out over our skyline like ghosts have been replaced by brand-new construction.

"But now we face a new threat. I promise that the GCPD is doing all it can to identify what this new evil is; moreover, I swear that we will not stop until it is discovered, brought to light, and crushed swiftly and justly. To that end, the Commissioner has authorized me to reinstate Strike Force as an emergency measure with the goal of restoring and maintaining order in Gotham in the short-term. Delta Unit will be a cadre of only the most highly qualified, most dedicated law enforcement professionals from across the GCPD and other agencies. We will be accepting volunteers for this arduous yet highly rewarding duty—"

"Then let me be the first to volunteer!" a voice called out from the back of the room. A figure pushed forward out of the throng of observers and lawyers along the back wall. Captain Gordon sucked in a breath and his eyebrows rose.

Bruce Wayne took two more steps forward, hands clasped behind his back as the cameras swiveled and began filming this unscripted development. Bulbs flashed and Wayne, to his credit, didn't flinch for an instant. Gordon cleared his throat and tried on a tight smile; it barely held. Gordon paused, waiting for the cameras to return back to the podium—the first time in his life he'd ever _wanted_ to be on camera.

Eight blocks to the south, a television continued to broadcast the press conference even as the curtains blew violently from the unexpected breeze ushered into the spacious living room by a window opened only a second earlier as the owner of the flat catapulted into the sky over Gotham's rooftops.

"That's incredibly admirable, Bruce, and I thank you. Welcome back, by the way! I think everyone here is inspired by your example—and if they aren't, well…they should be." Gordon took a deep breath. "Strike Force will hunt down those who have attacked our city, and they will bring them to justice. I promise the people of Gotham that much. God bless."

Without taking any questions, Gordon descended from the stage and ducked out a side door into a long cream-colored tile hall of the sort that stitched every government building together between its myriad conference rooms, cubicle farms, and corner executive offices. He was halfway to the double doors helpfully marked 'EXIT' by a red sign when the door to the media briefing room slammed open behind him.

"Captain Gordon!"

Gordon slowed and turned, unexpected weariness overcoming him. Bruce Wayne was marching towards him, his strong features telegraphing his intentions: the heir-apparent to Wayne Enterprises was visibly frustrated.

"What the hell was that?"

"Bruce, I can't let you join Strike Force."

"Why not? You want people that will be willing to do whatever it takes, that won't stop until the people responsible for putting your partner in a coma and shooting your ex-wife in the shoulder are behind bars or dead. Or did I misinterpret your speech?"

Gordon shook his head. "You didn't misinterpret anything, except that there would be open try-outs for Strike Force. I'm not going to let you or anybody else just walk off the street and put on a vest!"

Wayne's fists balled up and his brows furrowed. "I can't just sit by and not do anything, Jim. Gotham is my city; I need to help."

"You need to find another way, then, Bruce. This isn't it. When gunmen are crashing fundraisers and walking into police bars, the city needs an immediate response."

"I was there last night too, you know. I didn't just parachute in to save the day. I have a stake in this."

Gordon cocked his head and put his hands on his hips. "Bruce, I can't make concessions on this. Your enthusiasm and the selflessness in stepping forward like that are a huge help to my efforts in recovering from this. Use those constructively; Strike Force is out of the question."

Gordon clapped a seething Wayne on the shoulder and turned, disappearing through the double doors, leaving Bruce alone with his rage in City Hall. At the opposite end of the hallway, behind Wayne, a service entrance door closed silently, the eavesdropper retreating unbeknownst to either man.

* * *

Bruce Wayne clicked the key fob as he strode purposefully across the lowest level of the parking garage towards the sliding glass doors into Gotham General; behind him the Aston Martin made a light tweedle and went silent as the doors locked and its installed security system activated. He was pocketed the keys and entered the waiting area, immediately hating the antiseptic smell that pervaded every nook and cranny—its odor only got worse as he lingered waiting for an elevator to descend.

The ride up to the eleventh floor was interrupted twice as doctors filed onboard and then departed a couple floors later spewing rapid-fire vital signs and diagnoses of which Wayne only understood a third: The three months he'd spent tagging along with emergency responders in Paris had taught him a considerable amount about treating trauma wounds and immediately life-threatening injuries. Nevertheless, the nuances of the medical profession still eluded him, even though he could still recall with surprising alacrity the finer points of his informal schooling when he was still a teen at the hands of the woman he was even now winding through hospital halls to meet.

He paused outside Dr. Leslie Thompkins' door out of respect, knocked, and then let himself in. High in the corner, a television was running silently on an all-day news channel. A thin curtain shrouded her bed—he brushed it aside and eyed the bed warily. His hesitancy vanished, however, when the injured doctor smiled broadly, eyes illuminating despite the sling supporting her left arm and the considerable bandage wrapped around her shoulder.

"Bruce! It's so good to see you." She turned off the television with the remote tucked against her side and gestured to the chair. "Quite a morning you had down at City Hall. Do you have a badge yet?"

Despite her light tone, Bruce's features darkened considerably as he sat. "Actually quite the opposite. Captain Gordon told me in no uncertain terms that I have no place in Strike Force."

Dr. Thompkins, surprised at the consternation in the young man's voice and complexion, arched an eyebrow. "You're upset that Jim's trying to protect you? You just got back a couple days ago, Bruce, and now you want to go take on violent criminals?"

"I don't want anyone to mistake me for the teenager I was when I left, barely capable of defending myself. That's not who I am anymore."

"No, it isn't," Leslie agreed slowly. "But you weren't so reckless as to chase danger then; something tells me that you're still not liable to do so.

"Maybe so. It bears further contemplation. But I need to do something to help, Leslie. I can't just sit at home and watch Jim try and take on whoever did this single-handedly. He can't do it alone."

For the second time in their brief conversation, Dr. Thompkins found herself begrudgingly agreeing with her young visitor. "No, no he cannot." She paused. "How are you doing, after last night?"

Bruce shrugged, trying to deflect. "I'm fine. It's not the first time I've been held at gunpoint or had my life threatened."

"Just try not to make it a habit, now that you're back?"

"I make no promises, not at this rate anyhow," he quipped. They laughed briefly and as the sound trailed off into the somberness inherent in every hospital room, Bruce frowned. "I did have one question, though, about last night. And it's going to sound very strange, considering."

"What is it?"

"There was somebody there that I didn't expect to see…and I'm not talking about the gunmen. She had an invitation, and I think that for once it wasn't a forgery or stolen. How do you know Selina Kyle?"

Leslie's brown eye widened. "Selina? When did you see her? I must have missed her arrival, though I do admit that I invited her."

"She tried to pickpocket me at the bar before…before things went to hell in a very distinguished handbasket."

Lee nodded slowly. "And what was that like?"

Bruce recoiled. "'What was that like?' Leslie, I didn't come here for a consultation, especially not regarding how I felt seeing Selina again after all this time. I just wanted to know what she was doing there in the first place."

"She was there because I invited her, as I said. We met by accident at first, and then she kept coming back. It helped both of us cope, until the prospect of sharing any more of herself scared her away. That was long after you had left, Bruce. I was hoping to see her and check up on her last night, but obviously other things took precedent. I haven't seen Selina in close to five years, since right after Penguin was put away, but she is a surprisingly reliable pen pal—if hastily scratched out notes left on my counter every now and then letting me know she's still okay can be considered reliable." Lee laughed and Bruce wasn't sure if the tinge of bitterness was real or just added in his mind.

"Helped both of you cope with what?" asked Bruce, thoroughly confused.

Dr. Thompkins shifted and looked him straight in the eye and Bruce felt the entire room collapse in on itself like a black hole. He had the sensation that despite there being an infinite space between them, she was speaking directly into his ear ensuring he heard every word. Moreover, every word felt like a sucker punch he had no way of blocking.

"With your leaving, Bruce. It was the only thing Selina and I had in common at all."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you so much once again for the feedback, encouragement, and for taking the time to read both this and all the other incredible, much better written work out there! A special 'thank you' to the guest reviewers to whom i cannot personally respond.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Bruce stepped out of the coupe and blinked, trying unsuccessfully to recall any details about his drive home from Gotham General. Frowning, he closed the car door and walked across the pebbled drive towards the side door into what was, only two generations previous, the kitchen reserved only for servants. He deposited his keys in a small dish on the counter and climbed the stairs up to the foyer.

"Alfred, I'm back! Leslie says hello!" he called, voice echoing through the space. Despite not receiving a response, he added, "I'll be in the study."

The study was empty as Bruce entered and wound his way around a plush couch to his father's desk, unbuttoning the black suit jacket and draping it across the back of the couch as he passed. Bruce loosened his paisley tie, freed the collar, and collapsed into the chair, its cushions softening his fall. Wiping his hands down his face in an exaggerated show of exhaustion for an audience of zero, Wayne's eyes finally focused on something out of place right in the center of the desk. It glinted in the last vestiges of afternoon sun creeping through the windows, taunting him.

Bruce leaned forward and picked up the Gotham City Police Department badge at the bottom point of it, hoisting it up and studying the crest depicted in the center of the shield. Why in the world was there a GCPD badge on the desk of his study—

Wayne caught a twitch of movement in the murky background of the study as he focused on the police badge and stood, chair careening backwards towards the bookshelves in the study's nook.

"Show yourself! I know you're there."

" _Jesus_ , relax, alright?" Bruce tensed further as the intruder stepped into view, her hands up in mock surrender and the last signs of an eye roll passing from her features. "Did you really expect it to be anyone else?"

In response, all Bruce found himself capable of doing was gape. Selina Kyle was, once more, standing in his study completely uninvited, yet perfectly welcome. Bruce swallowed. "I just didn't expect it to be you; there's a difference. What happened to not wanting to see me?"

She crossed her arms, an eyebrow arching testily. "I said don't come looking for me; doesn't mean I can't come looking for you if I have good reason."

Bruce stiffened. "That reason being…"

"Preventing you from making a big mistake….again." She sauntered forward and perched herself on the arm of a chair opposite the desk from him.

"And which mistake would that be this time, Selina?"

"The one you're holding in your hand." She nodded at the badge. "Do you have a death wish or something?"

"I'm a just a citizen of Gotham like anyone else; why can't I volunteer to join the GCPD—hey, wait, you were watching the news?"

"You're not just _any_ citizen, idiot. You're Bruce Wayne. How could I forget? How could you forget? Like, I know you were gone for a long time and all, but wake up! I hate Gordon, but even I have to admit he had a point: Find another way." She gestured to the opulence around them. "You can help in a way nobody else can, and that's sure as hell not as a part of his stupid Strike Force."

Bruce stalked around the desk, shaking the GCPD badge at Selina as if it could ward off her logic. "He told me that in private. How could you possibly know what he said to me?"

"Please. Nowhere in City Hall is private." In one motion, Selina plucked the badge from his fingers, stashed it somewhere inside her small leather jacket Bruce couldn't discern, and hopped down from the chair. She twirled and started walking towards the window nearest the desk. "Don't think you can just come back and throw your life away; your butler'll miss you."

"What about you?" Bruce asked boldly, imbuing his words with a steely edge he most certainly was not showing outwardly.

Selina paused, one curtain in hand, and turned. The uncertainty she found in his eyes was reminiscent enough of another life, another time in this very room rattled her, threatened to shatter the mask of indifference and aloofness she'd spent all afternoon constructing while she followed him first to the hospital and then home. She held his gaze, replaying in the theatre of her mind scenes buried for years under discarded guilt, longing, and shattered hopes.

"Would you miss me?" he pressed.

Selina inhaled sharply through her nose; exhaled slowly as she weighed her response. A flicker of hope in his eyes made up her mind. She shrugged. "You were already dead to me once; I could handle it again."

Without waiting for his response, Selina Kyle disappeared through the window into the evening twilight, leaving before he could realize that she was incapable of lying to him, even after all these years.

* * *

Five days after being rebuked by Jim Gordon in his offer to join his newest iteration of the famed Strike Force; five days after learning from Leslie that every assumption upon which he'd constructed the framework of his reality during his studies abroad was fundamentally flawed at its core; five days after Selina Kyle took the time out of her day to absolutely and utterly devastate his, Bruce Wayne stood in Lucius Fox's office at Wayne Enterprises and tried to convince himself that the woman responsible for his inability to sleep—and for his continual attempts to drown in guilt over a decision he would never, if given the chance, make again—did not just strut down the hall outside the office as if she were an employee. He was describing to Lucius some of the finer points of exploring Angor Wat during summer holidays while at Cambridge when she walked past, arms filled with files and manila envelopes, and wearing a more professional ensemble than any he'd expected her to possess. Bruce Wayne paused mid-sentence, brows furrowing, and opened the glass door leading to the executive offices. Leaning out of the office—ignoring Fox's concerned inquiries as he did so—but only caught a follow-up glimpse of her as she turned a corner. It left no doubt in his mind, though: Selina Kyle, or her business casual doppelgänger, was walking through Wayne Tower like she belonged there and nothing was amiss.

"Lucius, can you hold that thought?" Bruce asked hurriedly after a moment's hesitation. "Oh, and I want to help out Jim Gordon's new Strike Force—see if there's anything you can rustle up that we can donate to them via the Foundation."

"I'll get right on that," Fox said dryly as Wayne left in a rush. Long, powerful strides carried him down the hall and around the corner as Fox stood and watched him go, thoroughly confused.

Wayne weaved around and between Wayne enterprises employees, keeping his eyes on the unmistakable tangle of curls bobbing along further down the hall. A frown settled itself on his features of its own accord and he shoved past a group of senior executives roughly, causing graph-covered papers to fly into the air amidst a torrent of curses. He spared a single look back at them in apology before trying to find Selina again in front of him, but his momentary distraction was enough for her to disappear from the hall.

The emergency signage above the stairwell just before the elevator bank caught his eye and he slammed through the door, stumbling into the harsh concrete of the stairs. Footsteps above his head echoed down and Bruce leapt in pursuit, taking the steps two at a time with relative ease. He swung himself around the railings on each landing, his arm acting as a fulcrum to launch him up flight after flight of steps,

The shrill alarm of an emergency exit being violated reverberated all around him. Two more landings later, Bruce shouldered through the same exit door onto the roof of the Wayne Enterprises building, a sharp breeze stinging his face and whipping papers and a manila envelope towards him. He threw an arm up in defense against the elements and staggered forward, glancing between air conditioning units and structural supports for the multitude of antennae still stretching skyward above him; there wasn't a sign of Selina anywhere, though his instincts warned the papers that had attacked him upon his appearance on the roof were proof she was still up here.

As Bruce rounded a corner, ears filled with the roar of the massive A/C unit to his right, he saw her, silhouetted against the overcast morning sky. Futilely, he screamed, the sound of his voice swallowed by the wind immediately. It made no difference, however: she waved tauntingly and then leapt off the edge of the building as if it were a three-meter springboard and not the roof of one of Gotham's tallest skyscrapers.

A sense of déjà vu brushed past Bruce, carried on the cold wind, and he threw himself into the abyss after her.

His fall lasted far shorter than he expected it to: there was a catwalk just ten feet below the roof's edge and he landed in a crouch, exploding into a sprint as Selina was already scurrying over the railing and onto the top of a different part of the tower, its stair-step design flashing through Bruce's mind as an afterthought.

He vaulted over the railing after her and, as he rolled on impact and rose to resume his sprint, the wind seemed less cruel, the circumstances of the chase less important. Once again he was a teenager, awkward and socially inept around his classmates, but completely at ease hurtling himself from rooftop to rooftop and balancing on fire escape railings to earn the respect of the girl with emerald eyes he couldn't stay away from, no matter how many times Alfred warned him about what happened to those reckless enough to play with fire over and over.

The only difference between then and now, Bruce realized as he took the gap between Wayne Tower and its neighboring office building in stride, was that he didn't crave Selina's approval or respect (that those teenage nighttime jaunts ended with her curled up against his side looking at the skyline, or not looking at all depending on her mood, was irrelevant); no, this time, Bruce needed answers and she held every single one of them.

Bruce followed without hesitation as Selina led the way, sliding down an inclined rooftop before hopping off the precipice and grasping onto a fire escape ladder. She slunk along the edge of it and then contorted her body to perch on a window sill, content to watch Bruce slide off the very same incline and nearly overshoot the fire escape ladder. His desperate flailing to grab hold and additional weight activated the spring release, and the ladder began plunging down into the alley below.

It jolted to a stop, leaving Bruce's feet hanging inches above a dumpster, but the thought of giving up now never crossed his mind. Grinning, he began climbing back up rapidly. Wayne crested the grating on the bottom landing of the fire escape and found Selina still crouched mere feet away, an equally feral grin on her face. Bruce took one step towards her and she launched herself across the alley, diving through an open window into the building opposite.

She turned, a taunt on her lips, but it died as the next window down shattered, its frame splintering as Bruce flew through it, arms raised protectively around his head. He landed in a crouch before pushing himself back to his full height—by that time, Selina was weaving through the unfinished woodwork that comprised the future walls of the apartment they were in. Selina laughed as they ascended the stairs to the next unfinished floor…and then to the next…and the next. To her surprise, Wayne seemed to be gaining, not falling behind as she'd expected. He matched her move-for-move as she bounced off walls over construction supplies, piles of two-by-fours, and slid under a manlift. Finally, they emerged onto a floor of the building without exterior walls, the inner support structure stretching above them sharply.

Selina could hear Wayne's heavier breathing just over her shoulder. Eyes darting around the space, she found her escape route above their heads. Just as he was about to reach out and tag her, ending their chase, she sprung sideways and up, arms and legs scrabbling against the metal as she shimmied up to a crossbeam. Selina hauled herself up onto the top of the I-beam and took off at a sprint along the narrow support. Bruce kept pace below as she wound back and forth towards the far side of the building.

He skidded to a halt as she soared into the air one last time, his eyes wide as she executed a perfect swan dive for several stories before her hands wrapped around a pipe and she converted her downward momentum into rotational motion and looped once around the pipe as if it were a high bar before dropping gracefully onto the roof of a low-slung supermarket. Selina turned, looking back up at Bruce, and even though she wasn't sure if he could see, winked before jogging across the building and dropping into an alley.

Bruce's mobile phone began chirping loudly in his pocket; his surprise that it was still intact briefly overrode the instinct to answer the call. Walking away from the edge of the construction project, he glanced down at the caller ID, confirming it was the only saved number in his phone.

"Alfred?"

"I'm glad you're alright, Master Bruce…why does it sound like you're standing in a wind tunnel?"

"Ah—long story…I'm not exactly at Wayne Tower anymore."

"Well, I don't suppose you know exactly where your pursuit of Ms. Kyle took you?"

Bruce looked around at the surrounding buildings, their bricks and mortar sharing no secrets; nothing looked familiar. He heard an elevated train rumble by a ways off and sirens rise in pitch and then wail off into the distance.

"No, I—what?"

"Lucius rang me the instant you decided your trip to check in on the state of your family's company was better served by pursuing that young woman wherever she chose to lead you. If you're going to risk life and limb, Master Wayne, at least do so for a worthy cause, yeah?"

"Already tried, Alfred. Captain Gordon said no."

"And it's a good thing, too." Alfred said, his tone clipped.

"What's that supposed to mean? What happened?"

"There was another attack—it's all those chaps on the news channel can talk about. A school bus was lit on fire."

"Alfred, tell me…" Wayne tried to find the words. "There wasn't anyone onboard was there?"

Bruce sat down at the bottom of a flight of stairs as Alfred's silence persisted—his inability to respond, more than enough of an answer for Bruce. He looked down at his watch.

"I'll call you back with my location in fifteen minutes."

"Very good, Master Bruce. Very good indeed. Will Ms. Kyle require a ride as well?"

"No, Alfred. Unfortunately not." Bruce hung up and slowly continued picking his way down to street level, muttering to himself, "And she wouldn't accept one even if she did."


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter **7**

Bruce Wayne fidgeted for the fifteenth time in the last couple minutes, tugging at his cuffs and readjusting a dimple in his tie that needed absolutely no correction whatsoever. He looked out over the crowd of police officers, lawyers, government officials, detectives, reporters, and politicians disdainfully as they milled about the auditorium chatting with one another and passing idle gossip. It had been Gordon's idea to have Wayne and Fox sit to his right on the podium with the police commissioner and a district attorney Wayne vaguely recalled from his youth but couldn't name—something about Gordon wanting to properly thank and recognize Lucius Fox, the Wayne Foundation, and especially Bruce for their generosity in helping provide equipment and gear for the newest iteration of Strike Force.

Wayne glanced over at where the five soon-to-be-members of Delta Unit stood perfectly still, their rigid posture and impeccable bearing on display for all gathered in the auditorium at the Gotham City Police Department Academy. Three were newly graduated from the Academy only the week prior, all in the top ten of their class, and all three volunteered for the Unit. The Gotham newspapers tripped over themselves talking about the "inspirational and selfless sacrifice" these brand new officers made; Bruce was more inclined to direct his praise to the other two members of the unit: career cops whose sterling records and commitment to maintaining order in Gotham were a far cry from the police force he'd left behind nearly a decade ago. One of the veteran police officers joining Gordon's unit particularly stood out to Wayne as they turned on their heels and marched up onto the stage, past Wayne, and took position on Gordon's left flank, executing another perfect facing movement to face the audience. The officer in question was a mountain of a man—Bruce could imagine him setting up a tent in the corner of a fitness center behind the treadmills so he would never have to leave.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen! It is my distinct honor as a Captain in the GCPD to introduce the future of our police force. These men and women have dedicated their lives to making Gotham the city we all know it has been and will continue to be in the future—a city that should not have to cower in fear from a group of masked thugs and lowlife criminals whose indiscriminant violence accomplishes nothing except to stand in the way of progress towards a better tomorrow."

Gordon breathed and looked to his left at the new Strike Force and applauded them, encouraging the audience to join him for a brief moment. "They have all personally told me that they would make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty to protect each other and every citizen of Gotham City. In support of this noble effort, I would like to thank the generous donations made by Mr. Bruce Wayne and Mr. Lucius Fox on behalf of the Wayne Foundation and all Gotham citizens: the advanced communications gear, non-lethal weapons, and body armor with which they have outfitted Delta Unit will prove invaluable in bringing these terrorists and violent criminals to justice so they may sent to Blackgate to spend the rest of their days where they belong!"

The crowd roared as Gordon swept his arm back to acknowledge his guests of honor. Bruce smiled sheepishly and waved before leaning to Fox, applauding politely as he did so.

"Lucius, did you give them the Future Combat Suit?"

Fox canted his head conspiratorially, matching Wayne's faux clapping. "No I only have three prototypes and obviously I couldn't give them to only some of Gordon's unit and not all of it."

Wayne nodded thoughtfully and sat back upright, clasping his hands in his lap as Gordon began reading off the names of each member of Strike Force in preparation for their oath.

"…first in his class and the son of a great officer in his own right, Officer Barnes…to his left, Lieutenant Lyle Bolton…"

Wayne cleared his throat and leaned back to Fox, "I'd love to see one of the prototypes, Lucius."

"Certainly, Mr. Wayne."

Gordon was continuing, "…please rise as they reaffirm their oath to the Gotham City Police Department."

The entire room rose, every member of the GCPD standing at perfect attention as the five newest Strike Force members hoisted their right hands and stared at the back wall of the auditorium.

"I, state your name…do solemnly swear…that I will support and defend…the Constitution of the United States…and the Charter and laws of Gotham City…that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic…and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge…the duties of a Gotham City Police Officer…to preserve liberty, justice, and the rule of law…to the best of my abilities…so help me God."

* * *

Dr. Leslie Thompkins was standing near the window, gazing out at the raincloud-draped Gotham skyline, when Alfred Pennyworth knocked on the door of her hospital room. His left hand was pressed to the small of his back in deference; in his right, he clasped a small but tasteful bouquet of flowers.

"I trust I am not intruding?"

"Certainly not! Please, Alfred, come in." She closed the distance between them and gingerly hugged the butler, ever mindful of the sling supporting her arm.

"How are you feeling? The nurses made mention you are to be released soon."

"I am—this afternoon, actually. Please, sit."

Leslie took the flowers with a smile and replaced the wilting set in the small plastic vase on the equally flimsy table in her room. They sat in the chairs on either side of the table; Leslie looked at Alfred intrigued.

"I came with a proposition."

"I'm all ears."

"Master Bruce and I would like to extend an invitation to stay at the Manor while you recover from your injury, if you'd like."

Dr. Thompkins smiled slowly and reached out with her good hand, resting it lightly on the butler's knee. "Bruce actually has no idea you're offering for me to stay with you, does he?"

Alfred smiled, embarrassed. "No, Doctor, he does not."

"Ah ha. You want me to talk to Bruce about something."

Alfred blustered for a moment before a sharp look from Dr. Thompkins quieted his stopping and starting. He cleared his throat. "While that may be the case, I would also greatly enjoy your company."

"As I would enjoy yours, Alfred." She removed her hand, sitting back in her chair. Lee fixed him with a concerned gaze. "What's wrong with Bruce?"

"Nothing's wrong, not so far as I can see; although, it has been well challenging trying to relearn some of his more idiosyncratic tendencies. But I'm concerned about him. Not only does he keep long hours with—do you know Lucius Fox?"

Lee nodded and frowned. "I've met him once or twice at events here or there. Always seemed to have the Wayne family's best interests at heart, which is more than I can say about some other members of that company."

"Very true, indeed. But Master Wayne has spent more time these past couple weeks with Mr. Fox than he has in his own house…and don't get me started on his renewed obsession with Miss Kyle."

"Bruce and Selina have been seeing each other?" Dr. Thompkins adjusted the sling and crossed her legs. "I suppose that makes sense, though it is rather quick for Selina to forgive him like that. She came up in conversation when Bruce came to visit me. You still don't trust her."

Alfred paused, unsure. "Not exactly seeing each other, per se. Certainly not in the fashion you're suggesting. I don't know details but I'm…I'm not sure how good of an influence she is on Master Wayne."

The doctor-turned-patient laughed lightly. "Al, there's never been a better influence on Bruce, except maybe you. It's just not always immediately apparent is all. But if you think I might be able to get him to open up about whatever it is that has him preoccupied, I'll stay at the Manor for a bit—at least until I have to open the clinic, that is. And take Barbara back off Jim's hands. I'm sure he's going to be swamped with work and she'll need to get to school and back."

Alfred stood and bowed his head in thanks. "Nothing would make me happier, Lee. And if Miss Barbara would need to spend some time in the Manor as well…" The butler smiled despite the color slowly seeping from his face. "I'm sure she will be a perfect angel compared to young guests we've hosted in the past."

The wounded doctor stood as well, embracing the butler with a smirk. "We'll see about that."

* * *

Captain Jim Gordon returned to his office alone, weaving through a forest of barren desks and coat racks. He unlocked the double doors and paused, turning to look out at the bullpen he'd spent so many years crisscrossing and negotiating as if it were a writhing pit of cobras; now he was alone above the fray.

Somehow it wasn't as reassuring a thought as he'd hoped.

The incessant ringing of his work mobile jarred him from his thoughts. He stepped forward and leaned against the bannister ringing the upper dais upon which his desk as a Detective had been situated.

"Captain Gordon."

"Jim? It's Christopher Smith, with the WCCU. I missed you at the ceremony this morning so I figured I've give you a call."

The White Collar Crimes Unit was one of the GCPD's newest divisions; despite his good intentions, Smith had a reputation for pushing too aggressively and too quickly for resolutions to his cases as he tried to establish a foundation of successful resolutions to cases much more lucrative and politically distasteful than those Gordon had dealt with his entire career. Just because the Mayor claimed an entire term free of violent crime (until the past two weeks, at least) and credited Gordon with much of that stability, Jim would be the first to admit his job was still far too busy for his liking and the WCCU's caseload only increased each month. Nevertheless, Jim could picture his counterpart's boyish features and sandy blonde hair—Smith was a rising star in the GCPD, and his appointment to run the WCCU was incontrovertible proof of that.

"How can I help you, Christopher?"

"We were asked to look into the damage those psychos caused at the museum a couple of weeks ago when they shot the place up and, well, that ended up not being the most interesting case we got that week."

Jim frowned. The simultaneous attacks that placed Bullock in a coma and were the cause of dozens of deaths across Gotham were still in the nightly news cycle—that the same group seemed to be continuing to make small attacks every few days didn't hurt their press, Gordon was sure. There were rumors that they were starting to wear grotesque masks when they attacked now; for something other than those attacks to pique Smith's interest was disconcerting.

"Alright, you've got me hooked. What was the most interesting case you got that week?"

"The same night as all those shootings and bombings, somebody broke into the Museum of Natural History and made off with a diamond-and-sapphire necklace. The necklace was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Jim. It's been on tour in Russia, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, France…the piece is priceless. I mean, we can put a price on it, but…"

"Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean." Gordon stood and turned, slowly walking back towards his office. "I deal with homicides, Christopher, and there were a lot of those that day. Why are you calling me?"

"Because we have nothing on the burglar. In the last two years, there have been over a dozen similar jobs across Gotham and the surrounding area. High tech, no prints, no fabric samples, no DNA, no calling card. Just clean, smooth, small window of opportunity robberies which, in order to not be seen by any cameras or guards, would require a flair for acrobatics that would make an Olympic gymnast blush. But this time I think we might have a lead."

"I'm still not seeing the point," Gordon growled, pivoting and looking out across the empty precinct.

Smith's voice gained a steely edge. "The lead is a reference number I found for a file from nearly a decade ago. A set of pink diamond earrings disappeared from a Wayne Foundation silent auction and within 48 hours of the event, the file disappeared. The reference card down at the Archives had your name attached to the initial investigation. I've got this feeling, Jim, in my gut. The two are connected—maybe there's one master jewel thief that's been dressing down Gotham for years—and maybe you can point me in the right direction."

"Or maybe you can have some respect for our fellow officers who lost their lives that day and let this go until I do my job."

Gordon pushed down on the handle and swung one of his office doors open. He clicked the phone off as he pushed the door shut behind him, blinds clacking against the glass as they swung back and forth. He slowly walked forward, uneasy for multiple reasons, chiefly that Selina Kyle had graduated from sleights of hand at fundraisers to making priceless necklaces disappear right under their noses. However, that primary source of discomfort ebbed at the sight of something distinctly out of place: a large postal box sat on his desk, large red stamps on every side proclaiming FRAGILE. The package was slightly misshapen, clearly mishandled during its voyage through the postal system until it arrived on his desk. He frowned. There shouldn't have been anyone here to receive the package in the first place. How the hell had it—

Gordon leaned over to read the address label and his mouth went dry. The package, excess tape wrapped in various patterns around it, was addressed to 'Detective Jim Gordon,' the 'Detective' portion lined out with a green sharpie and 'Captain' was scrawled messily above it. Jim looked up at the still-closed double doors, then flicked open the blinds behind him, peering out at the street warily. There was no way this package came through the Gotham City Postal Service: the street address was non-existent.

Instead of a street address identifying the precinct as the intended destination, the same green sharpie had written out: CUT ALONG THE DOTTED LINE; accordingly, green dashes ran down the center of the package along the longest piece of tape. Captain Gordon pulled open a shallow drawer from the center of his desk and withdrew the small pocket knife he kept there, flicking it open as he studied the box for booby-traps or tripwires. Finding no external signs of tampering or danger, he sliced through the tape and ripped the sides of the box apart.

There was an audible _pop_ in Gordon's office as a wire running from the top of the box to the device resting below jerked its pin out of position when the box opened. Gordon stumbled backwards as green smoke plumed out of the box and he felt small pieces of plastic tumble out of the air into his hair and onto his shoulders after their violent propulsion out of the box in front of him. He coughed involuntarily as the acrid smell irritated his throat and Gordon waved his hand uselessly through the air to dissipate the smoke.

"Exploding mail…that's a first," he commented dryly as the smoke finally cleared and he could properly take stock of his office.

Small red, white, and blue shapes covered every surface like confetti at the end of a sporting event championship. Picking several pieces of plastic off his clothing, he turned them over and over in his hand, noting that they all seemed to be the haphazardly-scissored remains of playing cards, one side an intricate weave of blue or red—the other side, predominantly white, except for random bits of black. The detective frowned as he slid one piece closer to him on the desk next to the box. The black lines on that particular piece seemed much less random and much more to be a representative of a jester's hat.

As Gordon's mind whirled trying to figure out why in the world somebody would hand-deliver him a box full of chopped up playing cards—dozens of the exact same playing card, if the other remains of cards strewn about were any indication—he finally noticed that there was writing on the inside of the box as well.

Gordon poked the box tentatively until he was sure that manipulating it wouldn't set off a secondary device. He picked it up and pushed all the flaps up before spinning the box, causing shards of glass inside to slide to and fro. Across the inside face of each top flap was written a single two-letter syllable in a messy script identical to that on the outside of the package:

HA HA HA HA.

Inexplicable goosebumps exploded along Gordon's arms and he felt the hairs on his neck prickle as he tipped the box slightly and peered all the way inside. The glass he heard moving previously littered the bottom of the box, which was stained darker in some areas from some unidentifiable liquid that still effused wisps of green smoke. Nevertheless, no stains or smoke could completely obscure the single purple letter painted _ad infinitum_ in lines across the bottom of the box.

Jim Gordon stared at the rows of J's, inhaled the green smoke, and blinked blankly as consciousness slipped from his grasp. Gordon felt himself tumbling towards the floor but was helpless to break his fall as the office faded to blackness and a gnawing fear that the letter signified more than just his given name overwhelmed him.

A/N: Thank you so much for the incredible reviews and support each and every one of you amazing readers has given me over the last week and change. To the guest reviewers especially please keep coming back! The more the merrier! New chapter this weekend (fingers crossed)!


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N** : I still don't own 'Gotham' or 'Batman.' Unfortunately.

 **Chapter 8**

Bruce Wayne balled his fists inside the pockets of his leather jacket, his back pressed up against the brick wall of a corner store, as the evening's earlier drizzle matured into an out-and-out downpour. Runoff streamed down a drainpipe, rumbling loudly as it gushed into the alley farther back from the street, the natural slope of the land bringing the rainwater past him and down to the sewer grate molded into the sidewalk.

His feet slowly grew colder and colder as the water soaked through his boots. His jeans fared no better; Wayne huffed and left the alley, walking down the street and dodging the accusatory glow of streetlamps even as he shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. He tugged a black flat cap further down over his eyes, glancing furtively around at the empty storefronts and the doorways into all-night diners and pharmacies as he rounded a corner and then found refuge inside a dilapidated phone booth.

He wedged the earpiece between his ear and shoulder as he lifted the heavy Gotham phone book, flipping through the well-worn yellow pages carelessly, skimming the letters at the top. Bruce glanced up and down the street intermittently, his unease at being alone this late at night in the Narrows quickly saturating the phone booth, fogging the glass right along with his body heat inside the cramped space. Wayne paused as he landed in the 'K's' and he slowly turned a couple more pages. As 'Kubitz' gave way to 'Lancaster,' he noted the expected omission and slammed the book shut. No 'Kyle comma Selina,' no address reading '101 Come-Find-Me-Bruce Avenue.'

At least it wasn't raining inside the phone booth—Bruce gritted his teeth as he felt a drop leak through a minuscule crack in the glass casing of the box and regretted his words as soon as he thought them. Exiting the phone booth, he side-stepped into an alley. If she didn't want to be found the old-fashioned way, he'd find her the way only he knew how. Wayne scrambled up the hood of an abandoned sedan, hopped onto the cover of a dumpster, swung up onto a fire escape, and quickly scaled the three flights of grated stairs to the roof of a building.

He blinked and shielded his eyes against the rain and more intense winds above street level without anything to deflect their wrath. Smoke rose in the alleys from the steam heat vents beneath the pavement, casting partially opaque curtains between buildings. Bruce lowered his head and leaped through a pillar of smoke and assumed a light jog as he moved from roof to roof towards the north. Occasionally, he was forced to move laterally between buildings when they skied too high in his path and after a quarter hour, Bruce found himself on the outskirts of the Narrows approaching the Midtown Bridge.

The bridge stretched out to Bruce's right over grimy water that pitched and splashed against the cement breakwater protecting the Narrows from being overwhelmed with water. The lights of downtown Gotham glimmered faintly in the rain, most of the lights becoming polygonal amber orbs that meshed together into vague building-like shapes. The incessant honking of taxi horns and the clatter of an elevated train running across the bridge as it passed through the Narrows and on to the far shore and the other half of Gotham City.

A block short of the bridge, its front steps and grandiose oaken doors facing the water and the dreary city opposite, an old Gothic-themed abandoned cathedral jutted grotesquely above the squalor and grime of the Narrows. Bruce hurdled over an exhaust duct and hopped back and forth from window sill to window sill on either side of a cramped alley before dropping into a crouch inches from a giant puddle. He rose, tugged his cap down, and exited the alley, pivoting to his left and walking past the church. Wayne side-stepped two peddlers descending the steps of the old church asking for handouts and entered the dank alley running next to the church. A stray cat mewled plaintively as it peered out from under a discarded piece of plastic sheeting and Bruce smiled: The block 'W' logo of his family's company was nearly obscured by grime and caked-on dirt from years of neglect in the alley, but the watch post still stood. He glanced either direction and—when he was confident no one was looking—leaped straight up, grabbing onto a ledge in the cathedral's exterior that was invisible unless one was looking at just the right angle and he pulled himself up, planting an elbow on the ledge and crawling forward into a small alcove.

The alcove's interior wall was broken and covered with shredded tarp to keep some of the elements from intruding into the sacristy; Bruce pushed through the tarp without remorse and found himself completely alone. He frowned. If Selina were here, the cat's warning would have alerted her and she'd be waiting for him here.

He walked over to the shelves housing stoles, bowls, and other instruments of the clergy. As he pushed the entire unit a couple feet to the right revealing a narrow staircase winding up into the upper portions of the cathedral, Bruce shook his head at Selina's sense of irony constructing her hide in a church. Every foot planted on a dusty step as he climbed higher and higher and the cobwebs grew more and more intricate brought back a flash of memories: her proudly showing him the spot for the first time, eyes shining with a need for approval he'd never seen before; the dry tone when she decreed her name was now Sister Selina from her days spent in the hide soaking in the holiness around her; her curled up into his side silently crying after she was unable to escape a heist cleanly and had the black-and-blue welts on her cheek, arms, and stomach to prove it; the last night he'd seen her in Gotham before leaving without any warning whatsoever…

Bruce emerged into a loft cross-hatched by the support beams holding the high-arching ceiling of the cathedral above him. A narrow oval window overlooked the Narrows and the foggy far side of Gotham, steam and rain moving in opposite directions in the night. Bruce moved meticulously through the loft, hand grazing over the collection of trinkets and keepsakes on the small desk one corner—most of them cat figurines or small items transplanted from Wayne Manor—and knelt down to pat the corner of the mattress and heavy blanket in the opposite corner from the stairs. To his surprise, very little dust plumed around his hand, correcting his assumption that Selina had not been to the hide for some time. He knew she never liked her safe space to fall into squalor—squalor being a very relative term in Bruce's mind as he swiped a layer of dust off an I-beam. The wisp of remembering her justification that she didn't sleep suspended from the rafters drew a sad smile to his lips.

Saddened, but still slightly encouraged that she still came by her old haunt, Bruce slowly walked over to the window and withdrew a grease pencil from the pocket of his jacket. Chewing on his bottom lip, he began to write a scrawling note across the narrow oval window…

Ten minutes later, Bruce alighted from the masked ledge into the alley and made his way through an easing rain back towards the street, turning and heading for the stairs leading upwards underneath the Midtown Bridge towards the elevated rail station. He purchased a one-way ticket back towards downtown and shuffled through the turnstile, head down and cap pulled low. Bruce Wayne made his way down the platform and found a spot masked by a metal support for the canopy overhanging the platform where he could wait for the coming subway while also watching for anyone following him. His attention was distracted, however, by two men walking together past his spot as they headed towards the extreme end of the platform.

"I know, I saw the news! And I'm telling you, they were moving around with flashlights on the second floor of this place down on Hubbard."

The second guy laughed mockingly. "You're full of it, you know that? No way you saw a bunch of clown crazies gearing up for an attack."

"Did too!" The first replied indignantly. Bruce fell into step behind them as they moved down the platform. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the light of the subway cars approaching on the tracks. He turned back to hear the first man continue, "…With clown masks and guns and I knew you wouldn't believe me."

"Nobody will believe you. They'll think you're just trying to get a reward or something; look at you."

"Well, when the cops find out the next attack was made from that house on Hubbard, they'll wish they'd listened to me!"

The train blew through the station, slowing with an ear-piercing screech. Bruce stopped, letting a car slow in front of him and he hopped into an empty car as the two men entered the next car forward of his. Bruce wedged himself into a corner seat and withdrew his mobile. Jim needed to know about this regardless of the time of night.

* * *

The phone on his desk was ringing louder and louder per his own settings preference, but Jim Gordon only heard it faintly as he stirred and shook his head, setting off a string of painful blossoms of light and he groaned, hand cradling his head as the other groped across his desk blindly to help himself up into the chair. Gordon pressed his palms to his forehead as he sat down, the ringing of the phone reaching dog-irritant levels.

Slapping a hand down on the speakerphone button, he groaned out, "Gordon."

Jim Gordon finally realized the entire office was pitch dark as he opened his eyes for the first time since waking up; immediately, he wondered how late in the evening it was.

"Captain Gordon, it's Bruce Wayne."

"Bruce Wayne?" Gordon repeated, disoriented.

"Captain, are you okay? You don't sound very well." Wayne's sudden shift in tone from terse and serious to careful and worried rattled Gordon. He blinked and looked down at the strange package where it was lying on one side on the floor after it fell from his grasp upon passing out hours earlier.

"Bruce…no, I'm fine. I just uh, fell asleep at work. What's wrong? What time is it?"

"A little after two. There's something I wanted to pass onto you. I'm on the subway right now and there were these other passengers who were talking about where some of these clown-masked guys in the Narrows might be preparing another attack. Would you like the street name?"

"How do you—?" Gordon rubbed his eye as his mind struggled to catch up to the crucial intelligence Bruce was offering to pass him.

"Don't worry about what I'm doing, Captain Gordon. Do you want the street or not?"

"Yes!"

"Hubbard, in the Narrows. An abandoned house. Good luck, Jim."

Gordon heard the click of a line cutting off fill the office and he shut off the speaker even as he stood and moved purposefully out of his office.

Eighty-six minutes later, Delta Unit of Strike Force rolled onto Hubbard Street in the Narrows, the five team members sitting silently in the back of an armored van extended in length in order to accommodate a larger locker of equipment courtesy of Wayne Enterprises. Behind the van, an unmarked squad car carried Captain Jim Gordon. The two vehicles moved slowly down the street in the persisting rain, pulling to a halt outside an abandoned two-story row house—across the street, another unmarked car turned on its engine and drove away, its tasking to canvas the block and find the target house in question accomplished. Gordon's vehicle did not acknowledge the other GCPD unit as it departed the scene; instead he withdrew his service pistol from the glove compartment, loaded a magazine, and racked the slide, chambering a round.

"Let's get the sons of bitches," he muttered as the car and van came to a halt.

Simultaneously, the rear door of the van opened and Gordon exited his sedan. Strike Force piled out in single-file, snaking around the side of the van and quickly but efficiently moving across the sidewalk and up the front walk to the door of the house, which was plastered in eviction and foreclosure notices. Gordon, wearing a Strike Force windbreaker over his Kevlar vest, slid into the stack as the fourth member in the row.

He keyed the radio leash clipped onto his vest, directing a separate GCPD team to cut the power to the block. As the lights in all the other houses blacked out moments later, Strike Force lowered night-vision optics down in front of one eye and the third member of the team stepped out of the stack just in front of Gordon. He pulled a maul from his back and slammed it through the handle of the door.

The first and second Delta Unit members, followed by Gordon, then the last three Delta Unit team members burst into the house. Following their initial burst of violent action, the team moved methodically through the first floor, clearing each room in teams of two, their movements perfectly in sync with one another as their weapons swung back and forth and they silently matched movements to extend their search into the corners of each room and underneath tables and behind obstructions.

Finally looping around the bottom floor and returning to the stairs leading upwards, Gordon passed a message of 'first floor clear, moving onto second floor' back to the support staff running the raid at the GCPD main precinct downtown on his radio. Turning the radio off once more, he used hand signals to direct the team to move upstairs, the first two walking in lockstep, one weapon pointed up the stairs and the other backwards to cover the landing. As they reached the top steps, the rest of the team moved one-by-one upstairs in a smooth, single-file line. The team stacked up on one another outside another door on the second floor and Gordon nodded to commence the breaching.

The first Strike Force member opened the door and let it swing all the way open before side-stepping and sweeping his weapon across the open doorway.

"GCPD! Drop your weapon!" he shouted. The police officer gripped his weapon tighter and repeated the command.

In response, the person in the room—out of Jim's view—opened fire, missing badly as two rounds hit the wall opposite. Gordon's Delta Unit returned fire, the first man placing a two-round burst right in his assailant's chest as he pressed the advantage and entered the room, three more Strike Force members on his heels. Gordon and the last team member paused on the landing as gunfire reports began exploding from various other rooms on the floor.

A door on the opposite wall flew open and two clown-masked men stumbled out, realizing Gordon and his fellow officer were still there a moment too late. They raised their weapons and were succinctly dropped with a center of mass double tap.

Reports of cleared rooms followed minutes later as the gunfire died out. Officer Bolton lumbered back out onto the landing, flashing hand signals and number counts at Gordon. Jim made the all-clear report of eight hostiles down, zero friendly casualties before he joined in the search for any evidence or intelligence.

Twenty minute later, a forensics investigation team arrived on-scene to help process all the information and biometrics of the criminals. Gordon leafed through maps and blueprints of police precincts in one upstairs room, rage building in his stomach at the audacity of these mask-wearing criminals and thugs. As his Strike Force took photographs and videos as well as catalogued all the intelligence materials strewn about the house, Gordon walked downstairs and outside into the graying dawn. He thought about the package in his office, the knockout gas, the eerie writing in the box, the seemingly unlimited abundance of actionable intelligence in the house behind him, and knew on instinct that whoever was actually behind these attacks hadn't been at this house at all; they were merely sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered by Strike Force.

* * *

As the sun rose on a rain-soaked Gotham City, Selina Kyle prowled down the alleyway next to an abandoned Gothic cathedral and crouched down to pet a stray black cat.

"Hey, Isis. What's the matter?" The cat mewed softly and slunk off down the alley, abandoning her post as guard. Selina frowned and scaled the wall of the church until she could shimmy over the ledge and into the alcove. Fear laced her veins as she ran two steps at a time up to the top of the hidden stairs and emerged in her hide. Her mind conjured up nightmares of squatters finding her hide and trashing it, stealing her belongings and ruining her quietly constructed safety bubble. If someone had broken into her hide…Selina burst into the loft, eyes darting back and forth, up and down scanning for danger; she found none.

She slowed and padded across the wooden floor of the loft towards the window, the markings on the glass catching her attention immediately. Selina walked up to the glass and ran a hand over its surface, the rising sun and its purples and pinks making the black grease pencil pop clearly in front of her. Her eyes raced across each line and then back to the beginning. She swallowed and stepped back, lowering herself onto the love seat positioned perfectly to look out through the window onto the city skyline.

A new day broke over her city as Selina Kyle read and reread the four lines of Bruce's unsigned message—unsigned as it may have been, the strong handwriting and the meaning of the words themselves carried his unique signature in each letter. Most of all, Selina was thankful that she could blame the sun's light for causing her to tear up in a final act of defiance against the emotions she'd held in check for the better part of a decade and that Bruce, with a few simple words, had unleashed like a dam letting its waters reign free downstream.

Yes, the sun was a much better excuse, Selina told herself as she choked on a sob and buried her head in the arm of the love seat.


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N** : First things first, I apologize for the relatively large gap in updates (thus far at least). Despite efforts to the contrary, I still don't own Gotham. But reviews make awesome (free) presents this time of year if you're in the giving spirit. Regardless, thank you to everyone who's read so far and I hope this tides you over until next time!

 **Chapter 9**

After putting her meager bag of belongings away in two drawers of a massive armoire, Leslie found her host preparing tea in the former servant's kitchen; the smell of freshly baked biscuits wafting up into the foyer led her directly there.

"I thought you wouldn't mind a spot o' tea after your day."

Leslie smiled warmly. "That's very thoughtful, Alfred. I'd love one, thank you. Bruce still not home?"

"He's downtown at Wayne Enterprises, working with Mr. Fox on some project for Strike Force, which has consumed his waking moments since his return," he answered as he withdrew a cup and saucer from the cupboard and set to pouring her tea.

"Is that what he wants to do now that he's back?"

Alfred poured her tea and placed the saucer and cup in front of his guest at the island. He placed a small bowl of sugar and a saucer with sliced lemons in front of her and set to making himself a cuppa as well. Leslie blew on the surface of her tea and wrapped her hands around the cup, enjoying the warmth radiating from the tea as she waited for Alfred to respond.

"The only person who knows what Master Bruce wants to do with his life is Master Bruce." Alfred turned and furrowed his eyebrows, clasping his cup in both hands and looking down at it, unsure. "He hasn't said much about his plans at all, really."

"Bruce was always very focused, though, and always had an end goal. He doesn't make decisions without weighing every option and outcome; he has to have something in mind."

"Well if he does, he hasn't told me now, has he?" Alfred asked rhetorically. He placed his cup down and shook his head. "We didn't even talk much while he was gone."

Leslie blinked in surprise. "Really? You've been everything to him since his parents—"

"You don't have to tell me, Lee. I can't say it was unexpected—he's always been stubborn and independent—but I'd wager we spoke maybe twice, three times a year on average."

"And you never worried about him? Where he was or what he was doing?"

"Sure I did!" Alfred replied sharply before taking a sip. "But I also knew betta than to interfere. Bruce laid out his whole itinerary for me before he left so I'd know where he'd be and when. I thought it fanciful at the time, but when he called me his fifth year away from Hong Kong, it was precisely when he'd written down that he'd be there. Knowing he was in London and Cambridge of late was a great relief, I must admit."

"He planned out the entire trip before he left?!" Leslie plucked a biscuit from the dish in front of her and bit into it with a resounding crunch. Around the crumbling cookie in her mouth and behind a politely raised hand, the doctor followed with a second question of, "Why?"

"That he did. He'd been working on it for a couple years before he finally felt like he was prepared to go. Bruce had an ever-expanding list of subjects he wished to study and a need to expose himself to any culture he could so long as it wasn't that of Gotham."

"I can't fault him that, not at all. But if he was planning on doing this for so long, why leave so abruptly? What harm could a 'good-bye' have done for all of us who have cared about Bruce since he was just a boy?"

"When you say 'all of us,' who else did'cha have in mind? Bruce never had a very large circle of friends…ah." Alfred stiffened, features darkening. "You're referring to the irascible Ms. Kyle."

"You still hold that grudge, Al? Not a Cat person?" Leslie tried to give her question a light-hearted tone, but she was positive he could discern her actual impetus behind asking about the butler's view of the young woman.

He pursed his lips, fighting the urge to shrug. "I was always partial to puppies. Not sure it's a grudge any more, if I'm honest with myself. I just never warmed to her wiles is all."

"He's the only person to ever have a positive influence on her that she's wanted to keep around."

"Bollocks," retorted Alfred immediately. "She pushed him away every time Bruce tried to let her in. The two of them are like a bad record, always skipping when you reach the chorus. Too many scratches to sound any good at'll."

"When he left, she was devastated, Alfred. She came to me! Selina Kyle—who you just described as uh, 'irascible'—sought me out to talk about why Bruce left." Dr. Thompkins leaned forward across the island, jabbing her finger into the tile. "I would stake my job on the bet that she's never been hurt so badly before in her life by someone, at least someone she chose to allow into her life in the first place. And Bruce ruined that."

"He was just a boy, Lee." Alfred gestured emphatically with one hand. "And so was she. Far as I can tell, they're right back to their old game. So why the worry?"

"Neither of them was ever 'just a child.' You know that better than I. How can you say that with a straight face after you just let Bruce travel the world _at sixteen_? Seriously?"

Silence fell upon the servant's kitchen. Alfred frowned and took a sip of tea as he struggled to find a suitable response. His effort, however, was interrupted by the door to the garage rattling momentarily before the object of their previous conversation elbowed it open, a large sleek container cradled in his arms.

"Master Bruce! What the bloody hell is that?!" Alfred exclaimed as he slammed his cup down on its saucer.

Bruce struggled inside and let the door swing shut as he deposited the seven-foot long sculpted case on the tile of the kitchen. He swiped a forearm across his forehead and smiled weakly.

"Hi, Doc."

She gaped for a moment and then pointed at the butler. "What he said."

Bruce glanced between Dr. Thompkins and Alfred, taking stock of the mood. "I seem to have interrupted something; I apologize. I'll get out of your hair."

"You'll do no such thing," insisted Alfred, stepping around the island to block Bruce's path up the stairs to the foyer. "Not until you tell us what that is."

"It's a prototype of the Future Combat Suit Wayne Enterprises developed for Joint Special Operations Command. Mr. Fox has loaned it to me indefinitely for testing purposes." Bruce crouched and depressed a recessed button on the side of the container. There was a hiss and the top half of the shell popped free. He lifted the cover out of the way and Leslie and Alfred leaned forward to investigate.

The curved container indeed held a combat suit surrounded by spongy padding to keep each piece in place during transportation. In the center of the container was the upper body portion of the suit, the torso and upper arms connected as a single element; the parts designed to protect the legs were in two parts below the upper body piece, one piece for the thigh and another that looked like it was designed to protect the kneecap and top of the calf. Between the leg pieces and the shell of the container, two calf-length combat-styled boots were inset into the padding. Just above each boot was a gauntlet of sorts, pieces of protective plating affixed to a firm mesh underlayer .

Alfred looked up sternly at Bruce. "And just how were you planning on testing the most advanced body armor in the world?"

"Captain Gordon told me I needed to find another way to help that wasn't Strike Force." The young Wayne pointed at the combat suit at his feet. "That's not Strike Force."

"And what, precisely, do you see that being, then, sir?"

Bruce crouched down and depressed a piece of the container, causing it to pop open revealing a compartment filled with syringes, gauze, and other basic trauma treatment materials. "It's for my protection. Jim can't clean up the streets alone. For all the progress he's made, it's been vividly clear since my return that Gotham needs something…more."

A concerned Leslie arched an eyebrow. "That sounds an awful lot like vigilantism, Bruce."

"No, it's restoring balance to our city." He looked up desperately, conviction aflame in his eyes. "Alfred, my father's letter. _This_ is what he meant. A true calling."

Alfred scoffed. "Wearing a suit of armor like some medieval knight isn't quite what he had in mind, I'm sure. 'Sides, if people see Bruce Wayne gallivanting through the streets wearing this, they'll think you've gone mad. You'll be thrown in Arkham before you can say knife."

"I won't be 'gallivanting,'" protested Bruce as he pushed the gauntlet back inside its storage spot and sat in a chair at the small table. "And I've thought about that too. I can't do this as Bruce Wayne. I'll have to become somebody else."

Leslie finally willed herself to move and crossed to the table, sitting across from him and taking his hand. She searched his features for signs of fear or recklessness, but found neither; calmness and assuredness of purpose radiated from Bruce. "Bruce, who do you think you have to become?"

She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward as his expression faltered. "I…I don't know."

Silently, the young Wayne heir pulled his hand from Leslie's and walked out of the kitchen and up towards the foyer. Stillness settled over the kitchen as the butler and the doctor stared at one another and at the suit resting at their feet.

"Suppose I better find a place for this, then, until he sorts himself out." Alfred mumbled half-heartedly, sliding the top back into place and obscuring the suit from view with a soft _hiss_.

* * *

The doorbell went a second time and the apartment's owner jabbed a freshly opened bottle of Scotch on the counter in frustration.

"Barbara? Put your book down, sweetie, and answer the door please."

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" she shouted back as Jim Gordon heard her footsteps patter down the hall towards the door. He checked the boiling pot on the stove and stirred the noodles several more times before hearing the door click open.

"Hello, you must be—"

"Bruce Wayne!" interrupted the young girl, reaching out her hand. Her reddish-gold ponytail swing energetically. "Hi, I'm Barbara. My dad's trying not to ruin dinner in the kitchen."

Bruce smiled, taking the proffered hand. "Hello. You don't remember meeting me at all because the last time I saw you was your first birthday, but I'll tell you a secret." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I'm sure your dad is a competent cook."

Barbara wrenched her face into a look of doubt. "Not really though." She matched his low tone and beckoned for Wayne to stoop so she could whisper to him. "He's making spaghetti because it's the hardest to screw up."

"Barbara? Are you being critical of my cooking again?" Gordon yelled from the kitchen deeper in the apartment as he noticed the noise in the hall diminish.

"No, Dad; of course not!" his daughter retorted despite winking at Bruce as she turned and waved him to follow her into the apartment. To her guest, she asked, "So how come you travelled all over the world? I read the cover stories in _Time_ , the _Daily Planet_ , and the _Bugle_ but they just listed where you went. I wanted to know why."

"There were things I thought I needed to experience away from Gotham," Bruce answered carefully. They rounded a corner and he smiled genuinely at Gordon as Jim put a spoon down, wiped his hands on his jeans, and moved around the kitchen island to shake his hand.

"Good to see you, Bruce. Sorry if Barbara's bothering you." He glanced at his daughter as she climbed into a high stool at the island, stood on the seat cushion, and leaned forward over the range to check his cooking progress. "Barbara, sit down!"

"Sorry," she mumbled as she followed his order. Gordon smiled weakly at Bruce, who simply shook his head and took the seat next to the girl.

An hour later, as she twirled her spaghetti over and over in place, Barbara voiced a question she'd been considering for the entirety of the meal. "Do you regret travelling to all those places?"

Bruce paused mid-swig of his beer, looking askance at Jim before setting the drink down and folding his arms on the table and leaning forward to make eye contact with Barbara. "Do you have any regrets?"

"Sort of…I had this project for school that got entered in the state competition and it was going to win, but at the last second I decided not to show the judges how it worked because I would have had to break the rules."

Bruce nodded slowly. "And your dad has taught you to never break the rules, right?"

Barbara nodded. "They're there for a reason, because good people need to be protected. Otherwise they get victimized by people who just want to hurt others. And I didn't want to hurt anyone, so I didn't show them and I got disqualified."

Gordon sat back in his seat, watching the exchange silently. Bruce raised a palm in question. "What did it do? Your project, that is."

"It's a search engine. It's super basic and simple, but it's fast and for school I used police records and hospital records, but those are private information and I didn't want to show them to people in case they got taken advantage of."

"You must be really good with computers, then."

Barbara nodded vigorously. "Oh, I am. I go to Gotham Technical; it's a magnet."

Gordon smiled. "She gets her brains from her mom."

"She gets her moral compass from you," Wayne countered. Jim smirked and took a drink as Bruce looked back to Barbara. "I think you did the right thing, Barbara. That was very courageous of you. It's not always easy doing the right thing…so to answer your original question: I don't regret travelling, but I do regret how I left. I hurt someone very important to me."

"And did they forgive you?" Barbara's eyes grew wide and she leaned forward, hanging on Bruce's answer.

Bruce frowned and shook his head. "Not yet, but I hope soon."

The young girl deflated instantly. She looked down at her hands and then back up at Bruce. "Do you want to see my search engine?"

Gordon smiled at Wayne and jerked his head towards the hall. Bruce shrugged and stood. "Where is it?"

Barbara grinned and hopped out of her chair, dashing off down the hall.

* * *

"Jim, what's this?"

Gordon froze as he picked another plate up off the table to take it over to the sink; he glanced up and saw the object of Bruce's curiosity as Wayne held it out to him. Jim stood slowly and frowned. He stalked back into the kitchen from the dining room, trying to process that Bruce was confronting him with a large flat rate postal box that stirred far too unpleasant memories for Gordon.

"Jim?" Gordon slammed the dirty dish in his hands against the bottom of the sink and turned around, arms crossed defensively.

"It's something I received at the station a couple days ago. It's from whoever's behind all the attacks that have been happening."

Bruce placed the box down on the island. "How can I help? Do you know who it is?"

"No," Gordon lied—at least it felt like a lie as he swallowed bile down and stepped forward. "But if you want to take a look at it, you're welcome to. I brought it straight home; the Commissioner would have a stroke if he knew I'd been personally threatened and that helps nobody. I didn't notice anything in particular about the cards or the box itself, but you've always had a keener eye than I do for those sorts of things. I just—"

"Go with your gut," finished Bruce in a daze, memories of his teen years whirling around the two of them. "You and Harvey both. I'll see what I can find, Jim. And thanks for dinner; you're not a half bad cook. Alfred should be worried."

Jim managed a distressed smile and toasted Bruce with a tumbler filled with two fingers of Scotch. "I'll drink to that."

Bruce nodded and walked out with the box under his arm as Jim tipped the glass back.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Students were crying underneath the shade of the elms lining the gated drive leading up to the front steps of Anders Preparatory School; teachers struggled to maintain their demeanor and reassure the children. From his vantage point—the open door of the command and control vehicle assigned specifically to Strike Force—Captain Gordon couldn't hear their sobs, but their distress was palpable even from a hundred yards away. A young technician called out from inside the van and Gordon turned, dismissing his sympathy to focus on retribution and resolution instead.

"What is it?"

The technician pointed at the bank of small flat screen monitors in her corner of the van as Gordon leaned over her shoulder with two other members of Strike Force. "Our drone has found the classroom where the hostages are being held. It's on the third floor in corner of the west wing."

"Which means the perps will be up there too; good work. Alright team," Gordon stood and spoke loudly enough for the entire van to hear. "We've found where they're keeping the hostages. HRT will assault the front doors in a diversion while Delta Unit will be on me going in through the basement passages to the other buildings on campus. We will meet up in the library on the first floor and proceed upstairs to rescue the hostages together. Minimize time out in the open; use cover as much as possible. Move in pairs; no blue on blue, got it?"

"What if there's bad guys mixed in with the hostages?" asked one of the young Strike Force members?

Gordon adjusted his vest and looked the younger man in the eyes, "No hostages die, got it?"

"Yes, sir!" the rookie barked before departing the van to arm up with the rest of the team.

A pressure regulator hissed as it let off air from the massive piece of equipment to Gordon's left as he shuffled along a damp, poorly lit underground corridor with the rest of Delta Unit. The grimy brick walls arched above their head in support of the massive limestone school building they planned on infiltrating. The few lights that did work were cased in broken glass, which threw inconsistently bright illumination along the corridor.

The single-file line of body-armor clad Strike Force team members moved from one patch of shadow to the next, their compact submachine guns at the alert as they advanced around a corner and approached a heavy metal door. Gordon motioned for Lieutenant Bolton to break out of the formation and take position next to the door. The large man wedged himself against the hinges of the door and grabbed the handle with a meaty palm. He glanced back at Gordon from behind the tinted visor of his tactical helmet and Gordon nodded. Bolton wrenched the door open towards the team and the other four members including Gordon slipped into the short maintenance corridor and up a spiraling staircase towards the main floor of the school.

The stack halted and Gordon keyed his headset. "Command, this is Gordon. We're in position. Give HRT the green light."

"Roger, Captain." A different technician in the command and control van in front of the school toggled a switch and was transferred to a different frequency. "Red Team, you're a go."

Inside the school, the members of Delta Unit heard a muffled explosion as the massive oak doors that marked the entrance to Anders Prep were disintegrated by plastic explosives and the GCPD Hostage Rescue Team streamed into the decadent foyer of Gotham City's richest private secondary institution. They heard sporadic bursts of gunfire—and then the heavier response of a large-caliber weapon. The rookies traded concerned glances as Gordon took a deep breath and tapped the officer in front of him on the shoulder. He stepped to the opposite side of the stairwell and two team members looked in his direction: the lead team member continued facing the door into the school proper and Bolton remained affixed on their rear.

"Listen up. They've got some heavier firepower than we expected, but we have the element of surprise. Check your targets; double-tap and aim for center of mass. We go in sixty seconds."

"Delta Unit, Red Lead! We're pinned down; where the hell are you?!" the voice cut across all their headsets, its clipped urgency far more chilling than if it were screamed worriedly.

"Or not," amended Gordon as he slipped back into the stack. "GO!"

A generic wooden door opened in a hallway of Anders and five kitted-out Strike Force operators slipped into the school, moving as one unit down the hall back towards the sound of gunfire. They navigated a T-intersection of hallways covering all their sectors of fire flawlessly, then turned a corner and moved through the fine arts wing until they reached the final corner before turning and approaching the foyer of the school. Gordon used a hand-signal to halt the team and directed the point man towards a stairwell in the shadows instead of around the corner towards the members of the HRT. Expeditiously, the five crossed the potentially-fatal open hallway and moved up the wide stairwell, watching their footing on the marble steps and keeping to the outside wall as they looped around a landing and up to the second floor. They emerged in a hallway identical to the one below.

Opposite the stairwell, however, a perpetrator stood with his back to them as he rained gunfire down on the foyer from behind a large limestone pillar. Strike Force's point man raised the muzzle of his gun, sighted in, and dropped the attacker with two carefully placed shots in the middle of his back. The team advanced forward, sweeping onto the semicircle-shaped gallery and using the large limestone pillars for cover. Two more enemies were still firing at the HRT below, unawares of Gordon's unit; the continued gunfire from their own guns and Red Team masking the arrival of Strike Force.

Gordon raised his weapon and dropped one of the remaining two attackers. The third one finally realized he was being flanked and retreated down a hall, firing indiscriminately back at Strike Force as they moved from cover to cover around the gallery. Below them, their counterparts in HRT moved out of their cover and across the foyer to begin searching the first floor. Jim crouch-ran towards the corner of the hall down which the last attacker was retreating. He stood up against the wall as he caught his breath and bullets flew past him to riddle the limestone pillars ineffectively.

There was a pause in the suppressing fire and he pivoted, weapon up and he fired back, clipping the terrorist in the shoulder as he disappeared around a corner. Breathing heavily, Bolton came up behind him. "Captain, did you see what these guys are wearing?"

Gordon turned and followed Bolton's outstretched finger as he pointed at the attacker on the floor near them. Frowning, Gordon crouched down next to the man and prodded him with his gun; the man shifted without resistance. Despite what should have been reassurance that the man was dead, Gordon found his heart pounding even faster as he stood back up and led the team down the hall away from the gallery and then up a set of stairs towards the third floor. No, it wasn't the man's mortality or taking his life; Jim learned long ago how to compartmentalize that.

It was the eerie and grotesque clown mask covering his face that Gordon couldn't get out of his mind.

The loud _whump-whump_ of an emplaced gun mount shattered Gordon's distracted thoughts and brought him back to the reality of his situation; he squirmed out of the line of fire and into an alcove beside a closed classroom door. Another team member squeezed in next to him and Gordon shifted so that he could peek out into the hall and fire back. Before the large gun trained back on his position, Gordon could make out a haphazard bunker erected around it of desks and chairs. Then the gun was spitting its deadly fire his direction, ruining lockers and sending shreds of paper and folder flying into the air with metal shavings.

Gordon looked at the team member standing with him and then at the door to the class room. Nodding in understanding, the young man shattered the sliver of glass window running vertically up the door and unlocked it from the inside as Gordon followed closely on his heels.

The hired muscle manning the large machine gun swiveled the gun back across the open hallway, firing at other pinned down Strike Force members. He grinned behind his clown mask at how easily they were deterred from attacking. Nobody was firing back at all and one of the cops was bleeding out in the middle of the hall, his gun just out of his reach. The goon laughed deeply. They couldn't beat him, just like Boss said—

The hired muscle's hands clenched around the grips of the gun as he fell sideways, pulling the gun wildly even as it expended the final belt of ammunition. Blood pooled underneath his body and Jim Gordon crouched next to him, flicking the weapon's safety switch and halting the deadly weapon's discharge. He looked back at the other team member from the doorway of the classroom perpendicular to the gun emplacement, waving him into the hall and gesturing back towards the stairs.

"Check on Barnes! And get medical up here right away!" Gordon jogged over to the last door in the hallway, shouldering through it as students and teachers alike screamed. He exhaled heavily and keyed his radio. "Command, it's Gordon. Hostages are secure…Barnes is down."

* * *

Bruce stood up and stalked across the cave in frustration, fists clenched. Behind him, one of a half dozen radios continued squawking the tactical communications of Strike Force as they swept through the entirety of Anders Prep and verified there were no more clown-masked assailants. As the grim reports on Barnes' condition piled on, Bruce turned and stormed over to his workbench, where the postal box Gordon allowed him to inspect sat tauntingly.

He'd spent the last three days poking and prodding the box but nothing seemed amiss. Bruce hacked the Federal Bureau of Investigation's various databases in a futile attempt to match the handwritten messages to their samples. The mass spectrometer in a different corner of the cave was still analyzing the samples of the explosive and gas residue he recovered from the inner lining of the box, but if it hadn't found something yet…Bruce was not holding out hope.

In contradiction to his pessimism, the machine in question buzzed from the other side of the cave. Bruce dialed down the radios and stepped around the tower of servers and power units that constituted the massive computer that dominated the small enclave. Bruce pressed several buttons on the chemical analyzer and waited for the product of far too much beeping, whirring, and other strange sounds: the printed graph detailing all the different elements and compounds found in the samples.

The analysis fell into a tray and Bruce snatched it into his hand, walking back to his chair. His eyes scanning across the sheet rapidly, he leaned back and furrowed his brow. The elemental breakdown suggested there had been some sort of combination of ketamine and nitrous oxide in the box along with hints of explosive to provide the more theatrical elements of the device.

"Sedatives and anesthetics…" Bruce voiced aloud as he set the sheet down on top of the radios and began typing. On one screen he pulled a virtual map of Gotham City to the fore, manipulating the zoom feature until he could see the entire street map of the city. He hot-keyed over and took control of a different screen, generating a list of all medical drug suppliers and transport companies in the city. As processors whirred and analyzed his inputs, Bruce started a third search on a bottom quadrant of screens, pulling the locations of Strike Force raids and arrests made. The drug company data and police inputs began populating on his map overlay of Gotham, dots appearing in scatterings across the gridded screen.

Noting a pattern, Bruce jabbed violently at the space bar, pausing the computer's processes. He stood slowly, eyes fixated on one small sliver of Gotham between Downtown and Midtown. Bruce reached out and double-tapped the screen, zooming in on the cluster of data hits, most of which were blue indicating they were Strike Force activity or intelligence reports about the attacks. But there was a large green dot underneath them. The warren of streets snaking around those dots was intimately familiar to Bruce—even more so as he added a three-dimensional scan of the city back on top of the street view. The run-down, haggard exterior of the buildings belied the absolute despair inside them, Bruce knew. Wayne looked over his shoulder at where the Future Combat Suit was molded to a matte black mannequin and allowed himself a small smile.

Nighttime in The Narrows was the ideal time and place to assess the suit's capabilities.

* * *

Selina Kyle popped the safety latch on a grimy, graffiti-riddled skylight and eased it open just enough to slide through and onto the catwalk that extended the length of the old gymnasium below her. As she stood on the metal walkway, she pulled the glass closed and locked it from the inside. The smattering of raindrops chasing her inside halted and she wiped her face dry.

She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the inky atmosphere of the space—the rainstorm outside blotted out any light from the moon and stars that could aid her and the layer of grime on the skylight further muddled any ambience.

And despite it being _ages_ since she'd last set foot in the building, Selina felt oddly at ease and comfortable as she moved silently along the catwalk and then followed the steps down as they spiraled towards a rust-hinged door. She eased it open with a creak and followed the cracked and dirt-stained tiles on the floor over to a large staircase. Selina stalked downstairs towards the large open area above which she entered, one hand trailing wistfully along the wall as she reminisced about the days and weeks of her childhood she spent scampering up and down these very steps and dodging through the human minefield that the open space more closely resembled when she stayed there.

Faintly, the old sounds of other street kids and teenagers griping and bartering and arguing washed over her as she stepped onto the hardwood floor of what many decades ago had been the basketball court of a recreational center, but would always and forever in Selina's mind be The Flea.

Her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, she walked between military-grade cots and peered at the work benches and tool storage cabinets with curiosity and a growing sense of unease, like she was trespassing on a rival's territory without permission. She pulled a small penlight out of her pocket and depressed the button on the end, casting a dim red beam across the nearest table. Selina picked up a container with numerous warnings about the dangers of explosive elements present contained within and then promptly dropped it back on the table in surprise.

Two lights burst into yellow above her as other sparked unsuccessfully, casting the space in patchwork light and shadow. Selina retreated into the darkness, clicking off her penlight and trading it for a switchblade as she withdrew behind a support pillar. A drop of rain landed on the nape of her neck and she rubbed it away with a frown and a spared glance skyward: there wasn't any movement she could discern above and none of the skylights were open, just as she'd left things. Returning her gaze to floor of The Flea, she watched a group of well-built men, their jackets soaked and hair matted down from the rain, trudge into the room from the opposite end from the stairs. Several carried duffel bags or backpacks, which were left in an unceremonious pile before then got closer to the cots and work tables.

Selina's attention wasn't on the duffel bags or their equipment, although part of her mind registered it was all military-grade weaponry and technology; her focus, despite the nausea beginning to build in her throat and the horrified pallor in her cheeks, was on their faces as they—

She was grabbed roughly from behind and spun around, coming face-to-face with the same nightmare-inducing clown mask all the men in the middle of the room were peeling off their faces. Selina tried to scream but the man's other hand clamped down on her mouth to muffle the sound as he punched her in the stomach and she felt her breath pass her lips unexpectedly. Her knife clattered to the floor. She gasped violently to regain her composure as he dragged her into the light. Selina dug her heels in, attempted to hook them around table legs and cots, but to no avail: the goon was too strong and moving too quickly for her to gain any purchase.

The masked thug tossed Selina Kyle easily; she arched through the air and crashed into one of the work benches, which sent tools and medical equipment scattering into the dark recesses around it. She spun with the impact, quickly grabbing a scalpel as she went, and then collapsed to the floor, hiding the weapon up her sleeve. Selina struggled to her knees, shaking, her eyes darting around to analyze her escape routes. One by one though, they were cut off as other men—both masked and unmasked—closed in around her.

"I found us something to play with tonight, boys," crowed the goon who discovered her hiding spot. Selina whipped her head around and hissed at him. "She looks like she's got some spirit. Break it."

A slow ripple of dark chuckling moved around the room as Selina glanced between the nine men closing in on her. She remained low to the ground, waiting for one of them to make the mistake of attacking first. The scalpel rested cold against her wrist, waiting patiently to be used for violent purpose.

One over-eager clown-masked thug lunged forward—and froze in place as the two fully functioning lights exploded in a shower of glass shards and sparks. The thug looked up at the ceiling, nonplussed, and Selina saw her advantage. She uncoiled, shoving the off-balance assailant to the ground and using that momentum to follow him to the ground and rise into a handspring, her flight taking her over the outstretched arms of another thug until she landed in a crouch outside their entrapment.

Selina planted and made to sprint for the stairs when the darkness off to her left moved. She held her breath and began slowly crawling backwards away from the shape as it stalked closer to the group of thugs, all of whom had drawn guns, knives, or some other blunt object and were talking yelling for the 'scaredy cat' to come back—some of their suggestions were far more graphic than others, but Selina tuned all of them out as she watched the other shadowy figure approach the group.

The one who initially found her turned on an LED flashlight, its stark white light piercing the darkness and sweeping towards Selina. She scrambled behind cover and peeked back at the group, watching as the clown-faced thug took confident steps away from the group, his flashlight's beam getting closer and closer to her hiding place…

Faster than she expected, the shadow tackled the thug, his flashlight clattering to the ground and rolling away. Selina heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy punch being thrown followed by a simultaneous _snap_ and keening wail she recognized as tell-tale signs of a broken limb. The flashlight cast The Flea in hideous abstract shadows, all sharp edges and strange shapes; Selina started moving back towards the assailants as she saw the other figure do the same. The thugs were slowly moving outward from their focal point, searching for their injured companion.

Paying too much attention to the mysterious visitor, Selina accidentally bumped a tool cabinet sending wrenches banging and clanging to the ground. She dove underneath a cot and scrambled away as pistols fired towards the sounds. There was a shout of surprise as one of the gunmen had his feet taken out from under him and he was dragged across the floor on his stomach and out of sight. He, too, fell silent moments later.

Selina padded up to a knife-wielding thug with no mask on, approaching him from behind. She tapped him on one shoulder and then darted around his other side as he whirled around to find empty darkness. Confused he turned back around to the heel of Selina's combat boot striking his chin. Smiling, the young woman began hunting her next victim. She scaled a pyramid of pallets using the cargo net securing the boxes of medical supplies as a set of loose hand- and footholds. She crouched on top of the highest crate, watching as another goon wandered too close. Dropping out of the sky, she landed on his shoulders, legs tightening vice-like around his throat as she cut off the blood supply to his brain. Within seconds she was riding his unconscious form to the floor. Knowing he would not be out long, she grabbed his head in her hands and smashed it into the hardwood and kept moving after picking up the large wrench he'd chosen as a weapon.

On the other side of The Flea, the second gunman was stumbling, frightened, towards the pile of duffel bags and backpacks in hopes of swapping his pistol for heavier firepower. He crouched down, unzipping a bag while still holding the pistol. Something rustled on the far side of the duffel bag pile and he swept his pistol around searching for the source of the sound.

"Who's out there?!"

"Me."

The thug started, whirling to his left and bringing his pistol to bear. The shadowy figure swung a duffel bag across his body, knocking the pistol away into the darkness and clubbing the thug across the face on his back-swing. He dropped the bag and stepped over the man's body as he moved on to find another victim.

Selina slowly stepped out from around another stack of medical supply crates and found herself face-to-face with a clown-masked goon holding a Ka-Bar. Instinctively he slashed at her, but she dodged easily, springing backwards onto her hands and kicking the massive knife away from her would-be attacker. She completed the back handspring and crouched with the fingers of one gloved hand lightly resting on the floor. Selina took a deep breath as he assumed a fighting stance and she flashed a feral grin.

Exploding forward, she leaped at an angle, pushing off the stack of crates and landing a leading elbow strike across his chin. He stumbled backwards, dazed, and grabbed a pair of scissors off a nearby table. Selina stalked in a circle that grew smaller and smaller, their eyes locked in a battle of wills as each waited for a moment of weakness to strike. Once more the thug proved impatient, lunging at her when she was just out of arm's reach. Selina side-stepped smoothly and, with a small twitch of her wrist, let the scalpel drop into her palm as she pivoted and jabbed it into the narrow eye slit in his mask. The man screamed and clutched at his face, falling to his knees. A snap kick to his temple a half second later silenced his wails.

Silence fell over The Flea. She chanced a look around the building but saw no sign of the other mysterious visit. Feeling like she had far outstayed her welcome, Selina carefully slunk back towards the stairs, walking silently along the old hardwood floor.

Her foot was on the first step when something tugged her backwards. She spun with the movement, her elbow coming around to hit whoever was trying to prevent her from leaving. A strong hand parried and grabbed her wrist, holding it above her head as her eyes grew wide in surprise.

"Are you hurt?" the figure asked in a low, rough voice.

Selina shook her head quickly as she tried unsuccessfully to jerk her arm free. She let her eyes travel up and down him, noting the advanced military-looking body armor and finally bringing her gaze back up to the tinted visor of the paintball mask he wore.

"I can take care of myself. Let me go."

He released the wrist originally grasped to halt her leaving. "You shouldn't come around here anymore. It's not safe."

She patted the face protector of his mask condescendingly. "You're not from here are you? You should follow your own advice." Without warning she slammed her hip into his and used the arm he was holding above her head as a fulcrum to flip him onto his back. Selina danced over his grasp and escaped up the stairs without a backward glance.

Sometimes, in Gotham, it was better to not ask questions and just _run._

 **A/N** : Let me know what you think! Have a Merry Christmas and take care!


	12. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Thank you so much to everyone who read/fav'd/followed/reviewed in 2015. Hopefully you're all as kind and excited about 'Gotham' in 2016! Happy New Year's and enjoy. I don't own 'Gotham.'

 **Chapter 11**

Sometimes in Gotham, it was impossible to outrun the questions.

For Selina Kyle, that inflection point arrived less than twenty four hours after she chose to run instead of confronting the mysterious person she fought alongside at The Flea. Her curiosity over both his unexplained appearance and his apparent skill in hand-to-hand combat consumed her mind as she returned not to her apartment Downtown, but to the loft several blocks away in the ancient church in the Narrows. Her mind was still reeling when she crested the final steps into her safe space—and then felt like it was no longer a refuge but a torture chamber. Bruce's message was still scrawled on the window and it took all of Selina's willpower and self-control to not throw something—anything—she knew to be Wayne family property through the window and shatter the specter haunting her in his handwriting. She settled instead for kicking her boots into a corner and diving underneath a heavy duvet and sleeping until the sun rose far enough to peek into her westward-facing window.

To her chagrin, sunrise brought no respite from the questions she tried to ignore mere hours earlier. Attempting to flee the unfriendly confines of the loft for a different distraction, Selina found herself walking out of her actual apartment two hours later in clothes much less conducive to free-running across rooftops and more in the line with the wardrobe choices of thousands of other young professionals taking the elevated train to work throughout Gotham. Selina disembarked and walked the two blocks to Gotham's most prestigious shopping district, joining the hundreds of Gothamites slowly walking up and down the avenue, coats buttoned fully against a sharp autumn breeze that signaled the coming of winter more than it did a second coming of summer warmth.

Selina paused occasionally, stepping closer to windows displaying well-illuminated necklaces, sparkling earrings and rings, and trendy accessories and clothing styles. She crossed the avenue at the last moment to the other side and continued down the avenue, smiling at particular pieces that caught her eye, and apologizing when she bumped into other window shoppers or commuters. After making her way only five city blocks in an hour, Selina slipped off the main avenue and up a side street before slipping into a quiet coffee shop. She smiled politely at the barista and ordered her usual before paying in cash and retreating to a small booth in the back corner.

After thanking the teenager who delivered her coffee, Selina shifted in the booth so that no other customers could see as she unzipped her jacket and began laying out wallets, billfolds, money clips, watches, and bracelets on the cushion next to her. They appeared from her sleeves, pockets, and hidden pouches in the lining and were arranged carefully on the seat next to her. She took a detailed inventory of the quick haul from her jaunt through a gauntlet of Gotham's wealthiest citizens and smiled. It was never a bad morning when an hour netted a shade over two thousand dollars in cash and jewelry.

Unfortunately, her good mood did not last long. In the last wallet she searched, Selina found a Wayne Enterprises badge and frowned as Bruce was unintentionally returned to the fore of her thoughts. Selina left her half-finished coffee resting on the table as she stood and left the coffee shop. The unwanted loot was deposited in random trash receptacles as she walked. If some pickpocketing couldn't distract her but rather only serve to return her thoughts to Bruce, then perhaps it was best to just tackle the problem head-on.

* * *

Bruce jumped, startled, as somebody sat uninvited in the chair opposite. He blinked and then straightened visibly, eyes darting around the Wayne Tower cafeteria as if he would discover the secret door through which his guest had arrived.

"Se…Selina," he stuttered as she took a bite of the apple in her right hand, chewing slowly as she raised a finger insinuating he was better off not continuing whatever thought he'd first intended on sharing; a second bite followed shortly as Bruce swallowed and tried to regain his composure.

"To what do I—" Bruce clamped his lips shut as Selina placed her index finger on them, silencing him. She glared and lowered the apple. Her finger followed as she leaned back in the chair.

"You don't get to play dumb. Ever."

"Do I get to talk again?"

"Are you going to be an idiot?"

"No. I know why you're here. I just thought you'd find me sooner."

"Excuse me?" Selina didn't bother masking the contempt in her tone.

"It's about the loft, isn't it?" Selina arched an eyebrow, daring him to continue. Bruce nodded in understanding. "I meant every word."

"You can't just walk back into my life when you're the one who chose to leave in the first place."

"Selina, that's dangerously close to admitting you let me in to begin with," Bruce chided softly as he tempered his words with a sad smile. She frowned and took another bite. "But you're right, and I'm not sure I could tell you where we left off, so…"

"So, what now?"

Bruce gave her a disarming smile and Selina tensed imperceptibly, fearful of what could possibly follow. "Does dinner on Thursday sound too formal?"

"It sounds like you don't think I do formal. Forgotten Doc's gala already?"

"Never," Bruce countered. "You know I don't forget anything, or anyone."

"Could've fooled me," Selina muttered softly. She dropped the half-eaten apple on Bruce's plate and left as suddenly as she'd appeared. Caught off-guard, Bruce hurriedly pushed his chair back and stood.

"Hey! Where are you—?" he called across the cafeteria, drawing the attention of a handful of employees eating their lunch.

Selina spun as she walked, smirking as she withdrew a wad of cash from her pickpocketing spree and waved it in the air. "Any excuse to shop."

She didn't bother waiting to see his reaction as she pushed open the door and headed for the exit with a knowing smile. She was confident he was wearing an identical one as he toyed with the apple she'd left on his plate.

* * *

Alfred Pennyworth stood with the remote opener for the fireplace in one hand and a freshly cleaned black tee in the other, waiting as the entire fireplace slid back and into its stowed position, revealing the steps to the cave below Wayne Manor. As the mantle disappeared from sight, Alfred stepped forward, pocketing the remote. A basket of cleaned laundry stood sentinel in the study as he descended further and further.

The butler stopped to punch the security code into the keypad and leaned forward for the accompanying iris scan. After several seconds, the door acknowledged his identity and beeped. Pushing through the heavy entrance, Alfred turned on the lights and paused, looking around the cave in stunned silence. The Future Combat Suit was back in place; the small pool of water underneath it and slow drip from the leg armor portion betrayed its use the previous night. On a workbench two guns and a large duffel bag were placed haphazardly as if Bruce left them there in exhaustion and was planning on investigation them later.

He furrowed his brow as he crossed to the hub of monitors and woke the computer system from its state of hibernation. Bruce's work from the previous day appeared on several screens; live video feeds from security and traffic cameras around the city appeared on a couple others. But the screen that drew Alfred's attention the most was the one separate from the others. It was a completely black screen, save for the white series of shapes at the bottom. Alfred scrolled the cursor over the triangle in the center of the screen and started the video over from the beginning.

When it was finished playing, Alfred sat in shock. After a couple minutes, he moved the cursor over the white triangle again to watch the black-and-white infrared feed of two figures fighting a group of armed opponents for a second time. He watched the video half a dozen times further and the icy pit in his stomach only grew as the cave seemed to shrink around him, the identity of the two most prominent people in the video evident even without sound.

* * *

There was a palpable heaviness in the precinct as Bruce walked down the stone steps into the bullpen and shook hands with an exhausted-looking Detective Alvarez, the purple rings under his eyes visible proof of the constant hours being kept by homicide during the continuing string of attacks and near-daily murders committed by suspects wearing clown masks, clown make-up, clown suits—Bruce looked across the room at the line of temporary holding cells along the far wall and found them empty.

"Bruce Wayne, right? Detective Alvarez. Nice to finally put a face to a name."

"Likewise. All these reports of clowns committing violent crime; why aren't you overflowing with suspects?"

"Because we can't find any evidence or proof," grumbled Alvarez as he released Bruce's hand and took a long drink of what Bruce assumed was black coffee.

"Besides the dead bodies?"

Alvarez frowned. "Yeah, besides those. Too many of those." He nodded towards the office overlooking the precinct floor. "The Captain's in there meeting with someone from the mayor's office."

"Thanks, Detective."

Bruce weaved his way up to Gordon's office and knocked. After a pause, he pushed the handle down and entered the office, the blinds rustling lightly. Bruce looked up to find Jim Gordon sitting behind his desk and the visitor just standing from his chair opposite.

"Bruce! Good to see you," greeted Gordon quickly. His gaze flicked to his guest. "You know Harvey."

The District Attorney turned and extended his hand with a polished smile. "We met at the Strike Force ceremony a week ago."

"Mr. Dent, it's good to see you again," Bruce took his hand with an equally practiced smile. "I apologize if I'm interrupting."

"It's Harvey. I was actually just on my way out. But we should get together some time. Sit down, talk about where Gotham's headed." Dent looked back at Gordon, then turned his gaze to Bruce and smiled ruefully. "There aren't enough good guys in Gotham."

"I can think of a handful," asserted Bruce. "Do you have a card? I'll see what I can do."

"Oh, yeah, sure." He withdrew his wallet and passed over a glossed business card pinned between his index and middle finger. "Here you go. Give me a call sometime. Jim."

"Harv," Gordon acknowledged the departing attorney with a nod and waved for Bruce to take the vacated seat as Dent closed the door behind himself. "Did you find something?"

Wayne shrugged and delivered the speech he'd practiced silently on the elevated train ride over from Wayne Tower. "It might be nothing, but I had Lucius Fox—you know him, I believe—run some chemical tests on the residue on the bottom of the box. It was a strange mix of sedatives and other drugs, so I started looking at medical supply distributors and where there's been the most reported clown activity."

Gordon leaned forward to take the printed page of possible locations Bruce developed. His gaze zig-zagged back and forth across the page rapidly. "Several of these are in The Narrows."

"I think that's probably where they're basing out of. I haven't been back long, but it seems like The Narrows is starting to give Hell's Crucible a run for its money as the most lawless area of Gotham."

The Captain paused halfway down the list at an address underlined in red. "Why's this one underlined?"

Bruce frowned and shifted, beckoning for the paper so he could look at the list. "Oh, that one." He sat back in his chair and met Gordon's eyes. "I didn't know that was the location of a reputable business, or any sort of actual business for that matter. Before I left, I knew it as The Flea."

Jim's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. "How familiar with The Narrows are you?"

"Selina took me once. It used to be a haven for street kids, like a Boys and Girls Club for an area that was too dangerous to have one. It just caught me off guard is all, when I was looking at the results."

"I appreciate the help; thank you."

Bruce put up a hand to deflect the thanks. "Don't mention it, Jim. I'll do anything I can to help. And don't worry about Lucius; he's discrete."

"I wasn't going to worry. He's another one of the good ones…but it's interesting you mentioned Selina. There was something else I wanted to ask your help on."

A sense of unease slowly crept up the back of Bruce's neck as he struggled to keep his expression neutral. "Which would be?"

Gordon leaned down and opened a drawer of his desk. He extracted a thin file and handed it across the desk to his guest. "I don't have the time or resources to look into this right now because of all these clowns and my counterpart over in White Collar Crimes has decided it's his shiny new toy. He can't prove anything, but he made a leap of faith and it's only a matter of time before he stumbles across Selina's name."

Bruce closed the police file on the museum robbery. "I'm still not clear on what exactly you want me to do, Jim. Selina hasn't exactly been, uh, welcoming to me since I got back."

"You're still the closest thing she has to a friend. If she didn't do it, she probably knows who did. Maybe she'll tell you."

Wayne shook his head and pinched his nose. After a pause, he looked back up at Gordon, a hint of desperation in his eyes. "And if she did do it?"

"If she did, then I can help her."

"She won't turn herself in, Jim. And I won't spy on her for you."

Gordon stood and walked around the desk pensively, leaning against it next to Bruce's chair and crossing his arms. He looked down at the younger man. "I'm not asking you to do an investigation. Just see what you can find out from her. White Collar takes things like this very seriously and I can't protect her if I don't have the full story. Please, Bruce."

"No."

"What about when they catch her? The museum is highly embarrassed and the owner of the piece is threatening to sue. This won't just go away; I know the WCCU. They'll keep investigating and they will find her. Eventually. Selina can't hide forever."

Bruce closed his eyes and exhaled. "I'm not doing this for you, Jim. And I'm not promising that I'll tell you anything if I find it. Selina can take damn good care of herself; she's always made it clear she doesn't need me to do that."

Gordon matched Bruce's slight smile as Wayne stood and handed the file back to Gordon, who replied, "Or me. But I can't help it."

Bruce paused as he opened the door and looked Jim in the eye from across the office. "Neither can I."


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Yeah, I'm goin' back to back...Well, with the self-indulgent pop culture reference out of the way...

Happy New Year! Two days in a row; sorry for getting anyone's hopes up this will be a trend and not the exception. I don't know how soon I'll be able to update again. Fingers crossed for later this week, but...If you want more in 2016, please review or favorite or follow or whatever you can do to let me know! To **Byzinha** : you're awesome. And guest reviewer Annie C, thank you for such kind words and I hope this keeps things interesting all over again! Cheers!

 **Chapter 12**

Captain James Gordon came in through the back entrance the next morning, slipping into his office at half past eight. He deposited his briefcase next to the desk, set his coffee mug in its spot just to the right of his blotter, and shrugged off his coat before hanging it on the rack just inside the door. He twirled the plastic rod dangling from the blinds, opening them so he could look out on Homicide and rubbed his chin.

Gordon returned to his desk and began organizing the files he intended to review that day, loosening his tie and rolling his sleeves up. He glanced up at the clock and swore colorfully. Snatching the nearly-full cup of coffee, he took a sip, winced, and left the office. Gordon took the stairs one at a time to the loft. Just as he'd done so many years before, he'd transformed the loft from overflow office space into the Strike Force command center; their daily morning briefing should have started promptly at nine, or five minutes earlier by Gordon's tally.

As he stepped into the command center, however, and set his mug on the large table dominating the center of the area, Gordon frowned and turned in a slow circle. He chewed his lip and walked over to the railing overlooking the bullpen, trying to maintain some semblance of composure.

"Alvarez!" he shouted down at the senior detective.

"Captain?"

"Have you seen Bolton this morning?"

"No, sir. I haven't seen him. Did he come in through the back door?"

Gordon glared. "Would I be asking if I knew he did?"

"Sir!" A young officer—the duty officer for the day—came racing up the same stairs Gordon himself ascended minutes earlier. He inhaled several times trying to catch his breath.

"What?!"

The young man took a half step back, his eyes wide in fear. "None of Strike Force has arrived this morning."

Gordon slowly pivoted, looking out over the precinct, nausea rising from his gut. "I've got a really bad feeling about this."

* * *

"Smells like bacon, Alfred," mumbled Bruce as he shuffled into the servant's kitchen with one eye squeezed shut and the other squinting against the cold morning sun cutting through the nook's windows.

"That would be because it is bacon, Master Bruce. Your powers of observation are astounding."

Bruce grunted and slid onto a chair at the island, blinking as he looked around slowly. He rubbed at one eye and moved the front page of the _Gazette_ over to his seat, glancing at the headlines.

"Are you alright, sir? You seem exhausted?"

"Late night," Bruce mumbled as he flipped open the paper and began ingesting national and international headlines. Catching up on jewel heists in Gotham over the past decade lasted further into the early morning than Bruce had anticipated.

Alfred scrambled four eggs with his back to the kitchen as he sarcastically responded, "And what was it tonight? More violent rendezvouses with Miss Kyle?"

Wayne's head jerked up in surprise. "What?"

The butler turned and served Bruce a plate of piping hot eggs, bacon, and toast. "You can imagine my surprise when I made my rounds yesterday and found your clothes from two nights ago. To sate my curiosity, I went down to the cave where you'd conveniently left the video of your exploits open for anyone to see."

Bruce chewed determinedly and, bacon clasped in his other fingers, raised his index in protest. "Now hold on a second. Nobody has access to the cave."

"No, just you, Lucius, and I. Leslie might as well be given the grand tour after your little entrance the other day. And for all I know Ms. Kyle knows too."

"Selina has no idea that was me," interjected Bruce hastily.

"Besides, you're missin' the point, Master Bruce." Alfred continued undeterred. He turned off the burners and wiped his hands on a hand towel as he stared down his charge. "The point is, you cannot just go traipsing about Gotham picking fights and be so cavalier about protecting yourself and those closest to you."

Bruce bristled in his chair. "First I was 'gallivanting' and now you think I was being cavalier?"

"I know you were! You made a bloody video of yourself. What would have happened if you couldn't handle all those men? If you and Miss Kyle were captured or killed, hmm?"

"That will never happen," Bruce insisted. "None of them were a match for either of us."

"And what happens when you meet your match, Master Bruce? Or if someone thinks you're just as much a menace as those men? That's a well uncomfortable spot you've put all of us in, innit?"

Bruce tapped the tips of his fork against his plate and stared down at his half-eaten breakfast. He sighed and looked up, folding his arms on the counter. "Captain Gordon asked me to look into something for him discretely. I didn't expect to run into so much trouble."

"And what was Miss Kyle doing there?"

"I don't know." Bruce shifted and glanced up at Alfred, embarrassment and resolve competing in his expression. "You're absolutely right, Alfred. There was no way to tell whether I was in the right or wrong. I don't just want to be a symptom; I have to be a solution. A symbol of what's good in Gotham."

"There's not much that is, sir," Alfred said dryly.

"No, but," Bruce chuckled in spite of himself and shook his head. "There's enough that's worth fighting for. Do you remember…"

A chilling scream echoed through the mansion. Alfred and Bruce exchanged a worried gaze before simultaneously gasping, "Leslie!"

The two men were on the move at the same moment, Alfred leading the way up to the foyer and then down a hall to her door—and crashed through it without bothering to knock. The butler stumbled into the darkened bedroom and whirled, marking Leslie sitting in bed with a pale expression and no obvious signs of forced entry. One of the windows on the far wall appeared to be cracked slightly—the drapes blew lightly in the breeze—but there was no way someone had slipped through the narrow opening. Faint light snuck around and below the drapes bathing the whole room in grey light.

Bruce pressed into the room behind Alfred as the butler made his way over to the bedside. He sat on the edge of the bed and extended a hand out to the doctor. She took it, her hand shaking, and tried to breathe regularly.

"Everything alright, Lee?" Alfred said quietly. His look of concern deepened as she shook her head and pointed with her free hand at the corner of the ceiling behind Bruce.

"When I woke, it was rustling, trapped, in the drapes. Then it started flying around the room. I'm scared to death of them."

As Alfred leaned forward to extend a comforting hug to Leslie, Bruce Wayne was taking slow steps towards the corner of the bedroom, eyes locked on the dark patch high up on the wall. Without warning, the dark patch detached from the molding and swooped over his head. Bruce pivoted and watched as the large fruit bat flapped leathery wings and deftly maneuvered around the drape previously such an issue and disappeared out the window. He wheeled to face the two other occupants of Leslie's bedroom for a moment, his eyes burning in the bedroom's early morning half-light. The conviction and excitement rolling off him was magnetic; Alfred released Leslie and stood, following as Bruce left the room in a rush, long strides carrying him back towards the foyer—and the study on the opposite side.

"Master Bruce?" Alfred called as he stepped into the hall.

"Can you think of a better symbol for Gotham, Alfred?" Bruce yelled back, flashing a smile as he turned around.

Alfred stood straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. There was a weight of importance suspended between them he'd not felt in a long time. "No, sir."

Bruce nodded, his eager smile slipping into a serious, determined mask. "Me either." And he shut the door to the study.

* * *

There were not many areas of Gotham in which Selina felt uncomfortable, uneasy, or like she was in danger of not having the upper hand. Unfortunately, the person she wanted to talk to worked in the heart of one of those few-and-far-between areas. She walked quickly down the trash-riddled steps, descending from the elevated train platform to the street; her hands were shoved deep in her pockets, each tightly gripping a knife. When the City Council held legitimate debates about building a wall around a certain part of the city—as they had regarding Hell's Crucible the previous spring—one could never be too careful.

Selina looked either way up and down the street, and then crossed without waiting for the signal. She dodged two taxis and some older model sedans, ignored the shouts of protest as someone waiting at the light behind her was mugged, and headed up the street on the far side. At least her destination was not even a full block from the train station.

Dr. Thompkins had at least gotten that part of setting up her clinic correct: the closer to mass transportation, the better. The reinforced vertical bars on the outside of each window also seemed prudent; nevertheless, the building didn't seem quite as foreboding as it could have—Selina noted the flower arrangements in troughs beneath each window and subsequently ignored them, but she was sure they helped lend an air of welcome to the building. A small engraved plaque on the brick wall next to the front door identified it as the 'Gotham Health Clinic for High Risk Children' with the names of its two practicing doctors inscribed directly below.

As she pulled open the door and entered the clinic, she briefly considered that if this clinic were open when she was younger, she would have fallen firmly in the target audience. The thought didn't bother Selina as much as she expected it to—and her comfort was due in no small part to her relationship with the doctor herself. It certainly had nothing to do with the two burly security guards standing sentinel in the entrance. Selina crossed a small waiting room to a reception desk, bulletproof glass rising from the counter up to the ceiling to protect the young woman currently acting as the receptionist.

"I'm here to see Doc Thompkins," Selina announced without preamble, placing a hand on her hip and leaning to one side.

"Do you have an appointment or are you a walk-in?"

Selina's eyes flashed. "I'm an old friend; do you have a spot in your little book for that kind of appointment?"

The receptionist recoiled in surprise, her hand slowly creeping under the desk, ready to depress the button triggering a silent alarm if this antagonist visitor made an actual threat.

The tension in the room was diffused by a soft, amused voice calling from the entrance to a hallway behind Selina. "Old friends come with me."

Leslie waved, pleased, though Selina could still detect a slight edge to her posture, as if she wasn't completely comfortable with her surroundings.

"Hey, Lee. Friendly staff you got here."

"They can be," the doctor laughed. She guided them down the hall and into her office, which looked out into a small, overgrown courtyard behind the building. Selina walked over and gazed outside. A cracked stone fountain sat in the center of the courtyard, vines twisting around it like garrotes. The brick walls of the clinic rose imposingly around it. Leslie sat at her desk and clasped her hands. "I have high hopes we can restore the fountain. It can be beautiful again, hopefully; a symbol of the clinic itself, really."

"Broken can be beautiful," Selina said quietly and returned her focus to her host. She began walking around the room, picking up photographs and looking at different charts and posters on the walls. Their messages passed right past Selina like faceless commuters during rush hour, her inner thoughts tormented by her evening earlier in the week at The Flea, Bruce's message, Bruce's invitation to dinner, her acceptance of said invitation…She reread a line on one poster a fifth time and finally moved on from it, still distracted.

Leslie pursed her lips, aching at how the young woman in front of her sounded so resigned to that assessment. "What can I do for you today, Selina?"

"Did you know that I got stabbed once?" she asked rhetorically. Without waiting for Leslie to respond, Selina continued. "Well, more than once, I guess. But this one time it was pretty bad."

Leslie bit her tongue to keep from commenting on how heart-breaking it was that such an occurrence would seem absolutely normal for the young woman. Instead, she opted for a sympathetic, "No, you never told me that. How old were you?"

Selina shrugged nonchalantly. "It was a couple years ago. I don't really remember when, just that it was after he left."

Dr. Thompkins leaned forward, intrigued. "Selina, you didn't come here to talk about a stabbing, did you? You came about Bruce."

"I was walking home from a bar in The Narrows. And there was this group of teenagers huddled in an alley around a stray. It was meowing really loudly and it sounded distressed," Selina ran her finger along a filing cabinet and paused, picking up a photograph of Leslie, Jim, and Barbara from years earlier. "I knew I could take them, even if there were four of them and only one of me. But I had to protect the cat, and I was distracted by it for just a second…and that's all it took."

Selina put the frame down and tugged her sleeve up, revealing a pale, thin scar on her forearm. "If you care about something, if you're not looking out for number one, you get hurt."

Leslie stood and crossed, taking Selina's arm in her hands and pulling the sleeve back down, masking the scar. She didn't attempt to hug Selina in condolence, in sympathy; her first attempt at that many years before led to a bruise on her shin that didn't abate for weeks. Rather, Leslie placed a hand on Selina's shoulder and turned her slowly, encouraging her to make eye contact.

"Selina, sometimes caring about something—or someone—is the only way _to_ look out for number one, if they care about you in return. Aren't two people looking out for you better than just one?"

The younger woman blinked and tilted her chin up, meeting Leslie's eyes with watery ones of her own. "But it's impossible to be sure they actually care. You think they do and then—then they're gone."

Dr. Thompkins shook her head, looked past Selina at the photograph of her family. "They're only gone if we forget them. Did you forget him?"

Selina sniffled and wiped a sleeve across her nose. Blinking, she fought to regain her composure as Leslie let her hand slide down and rub up and down her arm comfortingly. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to; it was rhetorical."

"That easy to read, huh?" Selina said bitterly.

"Only because I never forgot him either."

Selina wrapped her arms around Leslie and hugged her silently. After a long moment, she detached herself and padded softly out of the office. Leslie let her leave, her feet still rooted in place as returned her gaze to the photograph. She tried to tell herself that the 'him' to which she referred to was irrelevant, but the part of her that knew better chided her for allowing Selina to think it was Bruce.

* * *

A veterinary student from Gotham University, halfway through his semester-long internship at the Gotham Zoo, walked carefully down the narrow path behind the animal enclosures, his hands full with two large buckets of water. He sidestepped two junior staff members gossiping instead of making preparations to open the park for the day and grumbled under his breath. It astounded him sometimes just how little people actually appreciated that they had a job. He would give anything to get paid for the work he was doing now, but then again, he hoped to be doing more than just feeding animals and making sure their water was refilled every morning. The intern heard a loud baying echo through the stillness of the morning before children and tourists were streaming through the park goading animals and pointing rudely. He frowned and picked up his pace.

He followed the path around a final bend and set the buckets down so he could search a large key ring for the proper key to unlock the access to a large, crater-like enclosure. The baying was closer to a cackling now and his heart rate was picking up with each reverberation of the eerie sound. With thoughts of veterinary school and white lab coats swirling darkly with visions of the violent animals calling out to one another in his daydreams, he hoisted the two buckets and stepped through the unlocked gate into the hyena enclosure.

The student happened to look up and across the top of the sunken enclosure—its rocky floor set down into the ground to allow the visitors an opportunity to look down upon the hyenas as well as to provide a verticality for the animals to explore should they choose to do so—and the sight before him stunned him. The buckets fell from his limp fingers and splashed on the dirt-stained pathway. He slowly took two steps backwards and then spun and sprinted back towards the main building.

Behind him, the hyenas continued laughing as they circled beneath the man hanging suspended above their pit, blood dripping enticingly from his GCPD Strike Force uniform to the sand beneath their paws.


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N:** It's been a long time; I apologize! But here's the next chapter and hopefully it tides everyone over. I don't own Gotham, but if I did, it wouldn't be off the air for three months midseason.

 **Chapter 13**

There was a raucous crowd of zoo-goers restrained only by yellow police tape and three young, baby-faced GCPD uniforms. Escorted by the manager of the entire park, Jim Gordon jostled and forced his way between a third-grade class on a field trip—the teachers murmuring concernedly amongst one another as the children tittered, wrapped in too-large winter jackets portending the months to come—and some out-of-towners with cameras swinging from their necks as they craned to see past the people in front of them into the hyena habitat.

The manager and the former detective stooped awkwardly and side-stepped underneath the police cordon and towards the railing preventing those same tourists and school children Gordon passed just moments before from falling into the pit before him. Gordon frowned and tried to process the reality of the habitat itself: no railing in the world could have prevented the fate now awaiting one of his youngest Strike Force members.

From the top of a constructed cliff erected to look like the crags of some far-off desolate canyon, one of his hand-picked team members spun slowly upside down, the tips of his fingers dangling tantalizingly out of reach of the hyenas' jaws beneath him. Blood dripped down his arms and abdomen, a horrific amount of knife wounds releasing blood without remorse from all over his body and staining his uniform and kit.

Gordon closed his eyes and swallowed down his disgust. It was impossible to tell whether the man was unconscious or dead; Gordon wasn't sure the distinction was worth contemplating as he might die of blood loss before they moved him to a hospital. Without looking at the manager, he put a hand over his mouth and swept his suit jacket out of the way with the other before resting it on his hip.

"How long has he been there?"

The manager coughed into a handkerchief, tucked it back into his pocket, and looked anywhere but the body (Gordon couldn't take his eyes off it). "It certainly wasn't there when we closed yesterday evening, Captain Gordon. One of my interns found it this morning when he was opening."

"Is there any way to the top of those rocks? I want to recover the body." Gordon exhaled heavily. _The art of understatement_. He needed to recover it.

"There are officers on their way up already. But it is not stable. At any time it could—"

An ominous crack echoed through the habitat and over the crowd gathered just beyond its edges. Gordon tore his eyes from the body and looked up where an officer was trying to tread lightly and ease out to the edge of the rocks. He was frozen in place, pupils wide in fear that one wrong step could send the whole false façade crumbling beneath his weight. But Gordon knew better: it was not the false rocks cracking, but the strain on the rope threatening to part entirely. The officer shuffled forward slightly and a second crack was followed by a series of loud _pops_.

If he'd felt the need, Jim could very well have spent the next minutes contemplating how curious it was that time seemed to move at different speeds—often in rapid succession. As it was, he was distracted by the slow-motion parting of the rope as each individual thread stretched and then separated in frays. The top of the rope swung back and forth impartially; the remained curled over, a hay-colored noodle oblivious to the fate of the man previously suspended by it. The painfully long split-second that sealed the Strike Force member's fate transitioned to a fast-forwarding of the next minutes in Gordon's mind as the body thudded to the ground and the pack of ravenous hyenas descended upon the corpse of a hero.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, its timbre edged with resignation, a voice told Gordon it was the fate of all good things in Gotham to suffer similarly. He watched as the hyenas quartered one of the most promising young members of the Gotham City Police Department and tried not to consider two of the five Strike Force volunteers had now paid the ultimate sacrifice in less than a week, and that the last three were all-too clearly earmarked for the same fate.

* * *

"Your donation is completely unnecessary, Mr. Wayne, but it will not be forgotten. Your family has always been incredibly generous to this museum, and on behalf of our entire staff and patrons, I cannot begin to thank you enough."

Bruce Wayne smiled, embarrassed at the overzealous gratitude, and shrugged. "You're letting me wander around completely alone for half a day. The least I can do is compensate for all the lost contributions to the Foundation. I heard you had something of a tragedy not too long ago?"

The curator nodded sagely and waved for Bruce to follow as she turned and walked slowly across the massive lobby of the Gotham Museum of Natural History. "It is a tragedy, plain and simple. We worked for years to convince the owner of those pieces to allow them to be used for a special exhibit and then the night of all those killings…someone stole the centerpiece."

The elderly woman, stooped with age, eyes large behind thick glasses, punched the elevator button and ushered Bruce inside with her. They rode in silence up to the third floor.

Bruce gestured for her to exit first and then stepped out onto the walkway curving around to the far side, the lobby kiosk and marble floor stories below sitting silently. He looked up at the ring of skylights and furrowed his brow. "And that's how the burglar got in and out?"

Following the invisible line extending from his finger across the space to the skylights opposite, the curator nodded. "Yes. The glass was cut perfectly and the pane left on the roof. They will replace it once the investigation is done. Have you met Mr. Smith? He's been very insistent that the police are close to finding the thief."

Bruce followed the curator to the gated-off special exhibit hall and shook his head, even though the petite woman was looking down at the lock and key, not his face. "I have not. Captain Gordon spoke highly of him." Wayne left off the "sort of" he desperately wanted to tack onto the end of his response.

The lock clanked and popped open; Bruce gave the curator a hand sliding the gate open and smiled down at her. "Thank you for letting me in."

"My pleasure, Mister Wayne. I remember your parents very fondly. Just come find me downstairs when you're done looking around—no hall is off-limits."

He waited until she was out of earshot—not far given her age by his estimation—before muttering under his breath, "That's what I'm counting on."

Bruce walked into the richly carpeted special exhibit hall and spent close to a half hour simply walking from case to case soaking in the brilliance and clarity of one of the world's largest and valuable precious stones and gems collections. Beneath each small card noting the type of gemstone, the location and date of its discovery, and the rarity of each, a small plaque noted that the exhibit was on loan from the personal gemstone collection of the Marsh-Morton family. Bruce felt his palms start to sweat as he moved from sapphires to emeralds to fire opals to garnets to alexandrite to red beryl to taafeite and more that he could pronounce but with which Bruce was wholly unfamiliar. Diamonds were dispersed evenly throughout the hall in various colors and clarities.

Finally, after feeling a headache building as he calculated the net worth of each small, perfectly cut and polished stone, Bruce circled around the octagonal glass case in the center of the hall, its velvet display setting acutely empty given the wealth surround it on all sides. The information card described it in succinct words; however, Bruce tuned out everything except '75 carat sapphire.'

Wayne withdrew a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket and tugged them snuggly over his hands. Deftly, he snaked a gloved hand into the display and withdrew the oval glass piece resting where a priceless necklace should have shone brightly. He hoisted the glass towards one of the display lights, tilting it back and forth. The edges were smoothly cut; too smoothly even, unless the thief used a treated blade of some kind. Bruce lowered the excised glass and surveyed the room. He put the glass back inside the display and took a step back.

He was missing something. Leaving the security of such a vast quantity of wealth to a simple padlock, a sliding gate, and some glass was bordering on gross negligence and incompetence. Bruce glanced into the corners of the room and cocked his head. Walking slowly to the far corner, he shuffled closer to the wall and peered up at the security camera poking out from the shadows surrounding the pillar in the corner. The black lens peered back at him dispassionately. He waved a hand in front of it and frowned. Cameras like these should either be motion-activated or constantly recording to be effective; yet, this one seemed to be nothing more than decoration.

Lowering his gaze, Bruce took a slow step forward and then let himself fall forward. Extending his arms, he held himself in the front leaning rest for a moment before lowering his chest to the carpet. Bruce scanned back and forth, absent-mindedly noting the softness of the threads under his hands and cheek.

 _There_.

In a recess along the far wall, at an angle from the main entrance to the exhibit hall, a small squat cylinder was nestled against the bottom of the wall, out of view from anyone standing in the middle of the room. Wayne's initial thought was some sort of trap or rodent deterrent, but as he lunged forward and wrapped his fingers around it, his initial assumption began crumbling. Bringing the disc completely into the open, Bruce rose to a crouch. He furrowed his brow, spinning the device slowly between his fingers.

Something caught his eye, embossed onto one narrow side. He rubbed his thumb across it and angled the object so the display lighting caught the symbol. As the black-on-black symbol became visible, the temperature seemed to drop in the exhibit hall; goosebumps rose up and down Wayne's arms. The icy grip of indignation coursed through him. He tucked the disc into his fist and stood, walking from the hall in long, powerful strides as if there were something chasing him away.

Quite the contrary, he thought darkly as the elevator slowly rose to his beckoning. His hand clenched around the disc, its symbol burning hotly into his cold palm.

The device was pulling him forcibly to another location entirely.

* * *

Gordon's palm pressed angrily against the plastic of the steering wheel, the shrill keen of the horn piercing the morning rush hour unsuccessfully. He eased his pressure on the wheel before reapplying over and over in quick succession. A small voice in the back of his mind—a voice that sounded uncomfortably like Lee—reminded him that the horn was completely ineffective at making a car move forward at a red light, but Gordon didn't particularly care.

He'd warned the Commissioner this was a possibility, made known his grave reservations about bringing back Strike Force. Now two of them were dead before he could blink and the last three were missing as of that morning. Compounding the problem, as it too often did in Gotham, was the lack of evidence or leads.

Gordon laid on the horn again.

As he released it and began slapping the wheel with his palm instead, his mobile phone rang shrilly from the cup holder. The small screen blinked 'UNKNOWN CALLER' ominously.

Eyes widening warily, Gordon accepted the call and placed it on speakerphone. "Captain Gordon."

"Hi there, Jimbo."

The sounds of rush hour and the subway train rattling past a block away disappeared, all sound sucked backwards into the receiver of the phone as the menacing voice consumed his entire focus. Gordon could hear his heart pounding as the silence stretched two seconds, then three.

"Jimbo? I'm gonna need you to answer me, pal, so I know you didn't—hee hee—crash from shock."

Gordon swallowed, grabbed the phone (turning off speaker) and pressed it to his ear. "I'm still here."

"Good. See, I don'twantyoutoworryonelittlebit." The words spilled out in a single breath, the caller's excitement getting the better of him. "Your prized, uh, what do you call them? Right, 'Strike Force,' is perfectly safe and sound.

"For now." The caller's voice dropped considerably, the threat inherent in the words emphasized unnecessarily.

Jim was still reeling from the familiarity in the cocky, eager voice speaking in his ear. "Where are they?"

The caller tsk'd several times, punctuating his displeasure with a small giggle. "No, no that's not how this works! You're a detective. 'Detect' something for once, why don'tcha?"

Gordon heard the sound of the person on the other end licking their lips and then smacking them together before continuing, "I'll tell you what. I'll feeling generous today, so I'll just leave you with the knowledge that I'm going to tie up all the loose ends…you just can't be in such a rush!"

Jim jerked the phone away as the caller cackled uncontrollably at something funny only to his twisted sense of humor. Gordon punched the button with a small red phone on it, ending the unsettling call.

Silence descended uncomfortably in the unmarked police cruiser as Gordon tried to corral his breathing. Then the car horn began speaking for him even as the light remained red. This time, Gordon let it wail.

* * *

Bruce stormed right past the receptionist without waiting for her to buzz him into the office beyond her desk. He turned the handle, slid inside the door, and shut it immediately behind him, deftly flipping the lock and leaning back against the door.

"I'll call you back," interrupted Lucius Fox before placing the phone back in its cradle on his desk. He blinked—the first sign he was surprised by Bruce's unexpected arrival. "Bruce! What can I do for you?"

Noting the second sign that Fox was caught off guard—he didn't rise to shake his hand and greet him—Bruce stepped forward, placed his closed fist on the desk, and deposited the small black disk on the blotter. The matte black Wayne Enterprises logo was turned to face Fox.

Bruce sat in a richly appointed chair across the large desk as low clouds drifted past the window to his left in a wolf-grey sky. "What is that?"

The senior Wayne Enterprises executive adjusted his glasses carefully, stalling for time. Fox picked up the disc and hoisted into the air, turning it back and forth as he studied it slowly. He set the device back down and looked down his nose and over his glasses at the young Wayne.

"It's an electromagnetic interference device. There's an activating button here—you press it and wait for about three seconds. Then, it releases an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts any electronics in a thirty foot radius. We developed it a couple years back for police and Special Operations types in the military. Did your friend Gordon give you this?"

Bruce leaned forward and picked up the disc, studying it anew. He shook his head. "I found it."

Fox pulled his glasses off slowly. He echoed incredulously, "'You found it?'"

"I'd rather not say where, if it's all the same, Mr. Fox."

"Bruce, for the last time—Lucius. And it's all the same to me. But if you think it doesn't concern me that our company's technology is sprouting legs and walking out of Applied Sciences, you're mistaken."

"You didn't seem too nonplussed I wanted to look at the Future Combat Suit."

Fox smiled softly. "There aren't many people I would personally vouch for in this city, Mr. Wayne. You happen to be one of them."

Bruce withdrew his phone, quickly tapped his thumbs in a flurry of movements and waited until Fox's phone chirped happily. "And if I was asking you to let me look at all that tech too? Would you still vouch for me then?"

Fox reached for his PDA without taking his eyes off Wayne. His guest wore a blank mask, his anticipation hidden perfectly. Fox glanced down at the list and back up at Bruce. "How did you—"

"Again, if it's all the same to you, Lucius…"

Lucius Fox's eyes roamed down the list again. Smoke and tear gas pellets, oleoresin capsicum canisters, lockpicks, rappelling hooks, shurikens, a hand-held industrial grade saw, a line-launcher, sonic beacon…the list continued on, at least three dozen items in length and more and more specific as it went.

"Most of this is discontinued and in storage."

Bruce nodded and shrugged. "Or made by some of our less well-known business partners around the globe. That's why I didn't know about the EMP emitter. I guess it's still in production?"

"A best-seller."

"Add it to the list." Fox nodded and typed quickly on his PDA.

"Bruce? What—"

"Let's just say I have a better use for them than mothballs and leave it at that, shall we?" Bruce stood and smoothed his suit. He adjusted his French cuffs and crossed to the door. One hand on the handle, he paused and looked back at Fox with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. "And Lucius? I might need some place to put it all…mobile storage, so to speak. Easy access in a bind."

Fox jabbed his glasses at Wayne and smirked. "I know just the thing."

Bruce flicked two fingers from his temple towards the executive in an appreciative salute and let himself out as fluidly as he'd arrived. Fox swiveled in his chair and stared out at the clouds.

"A true calling indeed…"


	15. Chapter 14

**A/N** : Well that took way longer than I wanted. But it's here and it's the longest chapter by far. Does that make up for the month-long wait? No? Okay, well, what if it's about 90% BatCat? Still no...well, then I've got nothing. Thank you to guest reviewer yesteryears for a really awesome review-I don't know about all that. There are some awesome 'Gotham' fics out there...

As of right now I still don't own 'Gotham,' but I'll keep trying.

 **Chapter 14**

He wasn't sure when a half-empty gin and tonic became the most interesting thing in the world, but for the last ten minutes, it certainly seemed to be. Rather than cast a futile gaze at the door over and over, Bruce stared at the tumbler as he tilted it to and fro or ran his finger along the edge, making an echoed sound reverberate from the glass. The patrons on either side of him cast uncomfortable glances his direction as he repeatedly introduced the faint peel into the clamor of the bar, but Bruce paid them no heed. It was a way to steel himself for—

"Cute trick," a voice teased from behind him. Bruce clamped his hand down on top of the tumbler to silence the sound. He swallowed and turned, trying to appear casual and expectant—anything to mask the nervousness beating his heart like a snare drum and the anxiety each thump dispelled into his bloodstream. Nevertheless, no amount of training endured; no depth of education plumbed during his travels abroad was able to prepare him for Selina Kyle.

Bruce felt his mouth go dry and he swallowed uselessly. Her practice smirk belied nervousness on par with that of the billionaire in front of her; Bruce, for his part, could not detect it. He could not recall the last time he'd ever encountered a formally dressed woman as ferocious as Selina—not a single debutant or well-off Old World family heiress could compare to the study of statuesque beauty the girl he once knew as Cat had become.

Her smirk slipped for a moment and she looked down at her strapless black dress, small leather clutch squeezed like a talisman in her left hand, and shimmering silver jewelry adorning her wrists, neck, and the double piercings of her earlobes. "Am I overdressed?"

Bruce grinned, feeling as if she'd broken her own inadvertent spell. He tugged at his sterling silver cuff links, one after the other. "Not at all; as point of fact, this may be the first time I've been out in Gotham and _haven't_ been stared at."

Selina glanced around the bar as several men quickly averted their gaze to study their drinks; one rash middle-aged banker was not so wise, however, and winked back at the young woman before returning to the conversation his coworkers were having. Selina shoved her clutch into Bruce's chest and stalked over to the table. Bruce stared as she slid between chairs and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. She began purring something in his ear and looked up, waving faux-cheerfully in Bruce's direction. The banker swallowed visibly, his face beet red, and eyes staring at Bruce as if he were vengeance incarnate. Selina whispered once more in his ear as the rest of the table gaped—the buffoon nodded furiously and finished the rest of his pint as Selina sauntered back over to her date.

"What did you say?"

She took her clutch back and linked arms with Bruce as they walked towards the marble stairs leading up to the dining room. She patted his arm patiently, as if he were still the naïve teen she'd first met. "A woman never reveals her secrets, Bruce. Never."

They ascended the wide, curving staircase to the second floor where a maître d' smiled in a warm, but practiced, way and led them to a table for two next to floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. As their escort returned to his post at the top of the stairs, the head wine waiter appeared with a bottle in hand, displaying the label for Selina to approve or disapprove as she saw fit. Acting as if she felt out of her depth, she arched an eyebrow at Bruce, who chuckled and nodded at the waiter who uncorked the bottle and splashed the yellow-gold liquid in both their glasses. Bruce hesitated purposefully allowing Selina to make the judgement on their drink. After embellishing her sniffing of the bouquet and then smacking her lips once after tasting the wine, she nodded seriously and let the waiter fill her glass further; Bruce shook his head ruefully and lifted his glass.

Selina looked across the top of her newly filled wine glass coyly as Bruce finished his first sip and nodded in appreciation at the head wine waiter, who bowed slightly and placed the Burgundy chardonnay in an ornate wine cooler filled with ice.

He set his glass down and tried to focus on the menu; nevertheless, after several seconds under Selina's scrutiny, Wayne folded the large brochure down and met her gaze. "What?!"

"Aren't you going to show me how to do it?"

His brow furrowing, Bruce leaned forward. "Show you what?"

"Your little trick," she retorted before making a show of licking her index finger and then very slowly circling the rim of her wine glass. Her effort was uneven, however, and only fragments of haunting echoes emitted from the tall glass.

Bruce shrugged and dipped his finger in his water glass before effortlessly gliding it around the mouth of his wine glass and eliciting a beautiful note that caused several tables to whirl judgmentally and shake their head at his lack of decorum.

"There's science behind the music—harmonics and frequencies and so on—but I just learned from a street performer in Barcelona who was set up in a park playing beautiful tunes on his glass harp. I was bored for a weekend, so I spent two full days with his in the park learning how to play them. The note each glass gives off…" Bruce paused, took a drink of water, and moistened his finger before deftly ringing his water glass, Selina's, and then his own wine glass in quick succession producing three unique sounds, "…depends on the level of liquid in the glass as well as the shape of each glass. The more water—"

"Or wine," Selina interrupted.

"—or wine," Bruce admitted with a smile, "you have in the glass, the deeper the note. If take a drink or pour some water out, then you'll have a higher pitch. And don't use the pad of your finger; try using the smooth part just behind your first knuckle."

Selina smirked and dipped her middle finger in her water. She watched Bruce make another pass on his wine glass and tried to mirror his movement. After two unsuccessful attempts, her third lap around the lip of her glass produced a stirring note that intertwined with the chorus of notes Bruce drew from the other glasses on the table.

"Excuse me, Mister Wayne," the maître d' interrupted, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and a brisk walk across the dining room.

"Hmm?" Bruce casually stopped his impromptu glass harp concerto and picked up the wine glass in one motion, sipping at it innocently.

"Well, it's just, the, uh, other patrons are complaining that there are some very peculiar and disrupting sounds coming from this part of the restaurant."

Bruce set his glass down and piqued an eyebrow at Selina before smiling condescendingly at the head waiter. "Well if we see anyone peculiar or disrupting come this way, we'll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, we'll take the bruschetta and an order of the salmon tartare for starters?"

The headwaiter stuttered once more before stiffening and bowing slightly. "Of course, Mister Wayne. My apologies."

As the nonplussed man snaked his way back to the front of the restaurant, Bruce tried holding back, but as he glanced across at Selina doing the same, he lost his composure, his laughter erupting as hers tinkled harmoniously over it. Her hand reached out to cover his as they both found themselves with tears in their eyes as they continued laughing.

Several minutes later, after the last of their fits of laughter had passed and a much less presumptuous waiter arrived with a basket of freshly baked dinner rolls, Bruce tilted his head to the side and studied Selina as she buttered a roll and took a small bite before dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

"So, you're the epitome of refined manners and punctilious courtesy now?"

An indignant shadow shrouded her features and she pulled her hand back from where it had lingered on top of his. "I'm the what of what?"

Backtracking quickly, Bruce scratched at the back of his neck. "It's just…" He shook his head and tried to find the words to express his disorientation with the refined Selina sitting across from him that knew a good wine from a bad one and was perfectly at ease in a restaurant frequented by only the most select Gothamites with the Selina he remembered that would rather pick people's pockets at fancy to-do's than to rub shoulders with them, that wore dresses like an uncomfortable Halloween costume rather than an extension of her own confident persona. Breathing deeply, he leaned forward on his forearms. He tried to smile reassuringly.

"You're not the same Selina I remember, and the more I rediscover, the more intrigued I get. But…" Bruce frowned. "I wish I knew the answers to all of my questions already and that I hadn't missed out."

Selina scoffed in a none-too-subtle attempt at deflecting his attention from the blush furiously creeping across her features. "You're sure you wouldn't have rather been playing glass harps in Spain?"

"Well, I _did_ get some really generous donations from some tourists passing by…"

"Hmph," she grunted in reply, crossing her arms and glancing up towards the corner of the ceiling; her antics elicited a laugh from Bruce as he waved his hand between them, protesting her indignation.

"But then the other day I found someone playing one down in the Narrows and, not for the first time, I got the feeling I could have learned a lot right here in Gotham if I'd never left—that some things I can only learn here."

He held her gaze two beats longer than was necessary until Selina smiled shyly and looked away, seeking refuge in her wine glass. As she placed the glass back down, a waiter reappeared with their appetizers. He awkwardly rearranged the table settings like some crystal and ceramic jigsaw puzzle, trying to place their ordered dishes in the most convenient places. The young man—Selina hazarded a guess that he was a university student working to pay his way through school—paused for a moment before departing; she looked down at their appetizers and helped herself to the appropriate portions of both, spreading the tartare on a piece of bread and nibbling at it.

Bruce reeled as he equated _dainty_ with Selina Kyle for the first time and found his opinion smoothly changing into an appreciation for just how graceful she could make every movement.

"Bruce, you're staring." Her harsh words snapped the billionaire out of his reverie and she laughed awkwardly.

He mumbled an apology and helped himself to an appetizer.

"What were you doing in The Narrows? Other than dropping in on my hide unannounced, I mean."

"Um…" Bruce sipped his wine and tried to formulate a coherent response that wouldn't include something along the lines of 'The usual…Beating clown-masked baddies to a pulp with my bare hands so you wouldn't get taken advantage of and killed.' Admitting that outright to Selina was completely out of the question. Instead, he settled on a half-truth, "Well, maybe I just like walking the streets; getting to know our city again. You never know who you might run into out there. And as for the church, you should fire Isis. She was a completely ineffective sentry."

Selina arched an eyebrow, amused. "That so?"

"It is," he teased. "And I know we got a little sidetracked, but truthfully, when did you pick up so many high society habits?"

She hoisted her glass and swirled the wine around, "Like being able to pick out the taste of vanilla and citrus notes in this chardonnay?"

"That would be one, yes," Bruce managed through a laugh.

Selina took a sip, shrugged, and put the glass back down. She helped herself to some tartare and was about to answer when their waiter reappeared, hands clasped behind his back.

"Are you and the lady ready to order, sir?"

Bruce looked at Selina skeptically, who winked across the table at him, and picked up the menu. She presented it emphatically and pointed to an arbitrary item, its ingredients listed out below. "You mean I'm supposed to read this? I've never heard of half these words."

The waiter stiffened. "If you'd like, I can provide some recommendations, miss. Our chef's special this evening is the—"

Cutting him off brusquely, Selina handed him the menu. "I'd like the truffle crusted cod with wild mushroom ravioli and the langoustine arugula salad."

Baffled, the waiter mutely received her menu and pivoted to Bruce.

"I'll, uh," he stifled a chuckle and glanced across the table where Selina was sitting regally, smug in her success at discomforting their waiter yet again. "I'll have the, sorry…the mint lamb chops—medium rare—on a bed of lemon couscous with a side of grilled asparagus. Thank you."

As the head waiter moved away from their table to place the orders, Bruce leaned forward, eyes squeezed shut as he laughed until tears were running down his cheeks. Selina helped herself to some more wine and folded her hands in her lap.

"Amused?" she chided.

"Very. He deserved it though."

Selina hummed happily. "Yes he did, but it wasn't all just for his humiliation. Just because I _know_ the right way to act doesn't always mean I do. It's dangerous taking me anywhere in public; I'm always a moment away from embarrassing you, too."

Bruce feigned shock. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Excuse me?!" Selina raised her voice in tandem with a slender hand, waving to get the attention of the restaurant staff. In a theatrical whisper, she told her date, "I'm going to tell the story of the time you bought tickets to—"

"Alright; alright! You've made your point." He protested, still laughing. Selina flashed her proudest smirk and lowered her hand—but not before shooing away the eager response of one tip-seeking bus boy

"You want to know when I learned my manners?"

Bruce returned her smirk, long-ruminated upon memories swirling around them. "If you don't want to tell me—"

She grew somber in a flash, interrupting, "I learned them so I wouldn't have to go hungry three nights a week if I couldn't fence anything; so that others couldn't think they own me; and mostly so I wouldn't have to miss the only person I've ever felt a true connection with."

"That's why you learned manners? You missed Alfred?"

"That he might soften his stance on me may have crossed my mind once or twice," she jested in return. "But I had to, Bruce. You know how ruthless this city can be."

He nodded soberly. "It's not just Gotham, either. But things are taken to the extreme here—Selina, what you've done should be an inspiration, not something to hide."

She rolled her eyes and shrugged, taking a drink. "I've spent more time at fundraisers, awards ceremonies, and dinner parties than I can count in the last few years, met and spent time with people so rich I can't even…before you make a martyr of yourself, let me finish, okay?"

Bruce looked up, embarrassed. He tugged at his collar. "Okay."

"I spent so much time with them that I couldn't help but pick up habits. But just because you can blend in with a group doesn't mean you belong." She laughed bitterly. "Besides, kids in Gotham shouldn't take inspiration from someone who had to steal and con their way to the top."

"Is that how you see yourself?"

"Should I see myself any other way?" Selina leaned forward. "Bruce, after the Penguin was sent away and you were somewhere in Asia or wherever, that was all I had. I didn't buy this bracelet or this dress. Sure, I have a 'job,' but it's not my profession."

The table fell silent as she leaned back and had a piece of bruschetta. Her date toyed with his wine glass before taking a long drink. He looked across into her electric green eyes, a question still nagging at him.

"Selina, you don't have to answer, but it seems like you've thought about it just as much as I have…"

"You really have to ask?" The incredulous edge to her voice caught him off guard and he blinked as she continued, "We're outcasts, not a riddle. But we always seemed to make it much more complicated than that."

"Yes, we did," assented Bruce, trailing off as their food arrived and they both focused on the plates in front of them.

* * *

The hospital was empty this late in the evening despite visiting hours not officially ending for another twenty minutes. The beeping of various monitors and equipment blended together in the background as Jim stood, jaw clenched, outside the window into Bullock's ICU room. He watched silently as a nurse tended to his immobile form, checking on his vital signs and ensuring he had sufficient fluids hanging from his IV. Gordon furrowed his brow as she exited the room and smiled softly at him.

Gordon looked back through the glass at his partner; the nurse placed a medical file in a tray on the nurse's station and moved away down the hall.

"Hey partner," Gordon said softly, one hand in his pocket and the other rubbing at the stubble on his jaw. "It's getting awfully lonely down at the station; we get it, you want people to know you're gone. But the joke's just about run out, Harvey. Things are getting worse by the day and the Commissioner doesn't realize how fragile a thread this city is clinging to. I need your help again.

"It's like that time when Galavan's sister was waging war single-handedly on us and her brother at the same time; I think the mayor would seriously consider martial law if the Commish suggested it. He hasn't yet, thank God, but it's bad. It's really, really bad, and I can't help but feel like…" Gordon closed his eyes and took several breaths, covering his mouth momentarily as if he was about to be sick. He exhaled a final time and softly tapped against the glass with a closed fist.

"I got a weird call today. It's been in the back of my mind all afternoon and tonight I've got this sick feeling that whoever is behind this—whoever did this to you, Harvey…it's somebody we thought was gone for good. But maybe they never were? Maybe we took too many things for granted; got too confident in ourselves and our luck at putting every single psycho with an umbrella, freeze gun, or bull whip behind bars or in the ground."

Gordon swallowed hard. The silence of the hospital crept around him, the feeling as oppressive as the vines of an unruly forest snaking around his limbs and chest before they began squeezing or as chilling as an unnatural fog slinking ashore from the bay on most mornings in Gotham as fall succumbed to winter. Gordon wiped his mouth and chewed at his bottom lip. Harvey lay silently on the far side of the glass.

"Maybe we didn't put as many of them in the ground as we thought."

Jim turned and began heading back for the elevator, trying to shake the icy feeling of _something_ sharing the hallway's emptiness with him, something sinister and dark and ominous. He turned back to check behind himself twice and couldn't stand still as the elevator ascended to Harvey's floor. Gordon stepped in and looked down to jab hurriedly at the button for the ground floor.

 _Jim…_ Gordon's head snapped up and he stuck a hand between the closing doors of the elevator, eyes wide and looking for the source of the sound of Harvey calling his name, but the hall was deserted. Jim slipped back into the elevator and the doors slammed shut. Silently, he wished he could block out his demons the same way, but the pessimist deep inside knew better.

In Gotham, sins were never redeemed; they were only masked by newer ones.

* * *

The moon hung low in a gap between skyscrapers, blinking red aircraft warning lights extending above the orange lights of empty office buildings, mixed properties, and residential towers; in his travels across the world, Bruce Wayne was sure nothing compared to the cold beauty of his home city late at night.

Or maybe it was just that the company looking out at this skyline was infinitely improved upon looking out at London, Paris, Dubai, Taipei, and Singapore completely alone. Selina shifted against his side, nuzzling against him and pulling his arm tighter around her shoulder. On the roof behind them, an industrial ventilation system whirred; steam from vents in the sidewalks below them curled up like ghostly weeds amidst the urban forest. The gravel of a rooftop never felt more comfortable.

Bruce let his gaze linger on the Midtown Bridge to their right, small red and white pixels of headlights and taillights moving back and forth across its expanse (that there were more of the latter fleeing The Narrows than the former entering was not lost on Bruce). He smiled ruefully.

"I remember the first time you brought me across it to The Narrows," he said quietly. It was well after midnight—they'd retreated to her loft following dinner to allow Selina to change out of her dress (Bruce was instructed under penalty of eye gouging to not set leave the sacristy below)—before leisurely making their way to one of their most frequently visited spots in the city, the roof of an apartment building rising above a small used book store that offered perfect views of Gotham without the reminder of the squalor hidden within its framework.

"I took you to The Flea," Selina reminisced in a whisper. "And you met Ivy."

Bruce laughed, "I think 'met' is a strong term. You couldn't get me away from her quickly enough."

"I can be possessive at times," she reasoned simply. After a beat, Selina twisted to look up at Bruce. "It's funny you mention The Flea; I had a weird experience there earlier this week."

Bruce arched an eyebrow for her to continue as he struggled to maintain his feigned ignorance of their encounter with the clown thugs. "Oh? What kind of experience?"

"Like the kind that ends with lots of people hurt except for me," she boasted with a grin.

In spite of himself, Bruce chuckled. "You make it sound so easy to take on Gotham by yourself."

Selina frowned and squirmed back into position looking out at the city, one hand resting on Bruce's chest. "There's the catch. I had some help. I didn't go looking for a fight; I was just trying to get out of the rain after doing some petty thieving and I was feeling nostalgic. But somebody else showed up—good thing too 'cause there were a bunch of those clown-masked guys.

"I can handle myself," she qualified indignantly, "But I didn't mind the help that night. He knew what he was doing."

Bruce closed his eyes as he fought the urge to grin madly. It was as much of a compliment as he could expect Selina to give someone she didn't know or trust—and it was clear enough the stranger she thought she had met earlier in the week was both untrustworthy and an unknown quantity. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but nudge her lightly.

"You don't think I could have helped?"

She patted his chest condescendingly. "I'm sure you learned plenty of neat things while you were gone, but don't give yourself too much credit."

Ego bruised, the next words tumbled out of his mouth before Bruce could stop himself. "And how much credit do you give yourself for lifting the Marsh-Morton necklace?"

An uncomfortable silence descended on the peaceful rooftop as they both froze. Then, without warning, Selina was extracting herself from his embrace and running full tilt across the gravel as Bruce protested and attempted to retract his accusation.

"Selina, wait!" She ignored him and leaped across an alley, weaving up the slanted tiling of a warehouse and aiming for the far side of the next building as Bruce gave chase. He planted and extended his arms, swinging his legs up and over the edge of the roof like it was a pommel horse and landed in a crouch on the next building, rising into a sprint that sprayed gravel bits into the night as he chased Selina north through the Narrows.

She refused to look over her shoulder; she knew Bruce would be chasing, his shirt messily untucked and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She planted on her right leg, pinballing over a low-lying exhaust vent before landing back on the roof and continuing to run away from the only person in Gotham who knew enough of her secrets to ruin her. Yet, as they zigzagged and back-tracked up and down the rooftops of The Narrows, the secondary focus of Selina's mind (behind losing Bruce from her track) was trying to sort out just how he'd come to know she had committed that particular robbery. Then, as she began climbing through the scaffolding of some reclamation project, she heard a shout in the distance and she spun in a crouch on the wood slating.

Below, Bruce skidded to a halt and stared past the scaffolding at the elevated train tracks running off from the Midtown Bridge and around a bend towards the first station on The Narrows side of the bridge. He yelled again for Selina to wait and chanced a glance up to where she was crouching looking down at him. He pointed at the tracks emphatically.

"Selina, we have to help."

She followed his finger, slowly stretching until she was standing up and could see over the tarp draped along the outside of the scaffolding. On the tracks, a group of four men were tying a fifth figure down to the rails, a black bag pulled snugly over his head so she could not see exactly who the victim of the gang attack was. What she could see clearly in the moonlight were the clown masks on the attackers. The shout seemed to come from one of them who slipped and was currently struggling back onto the tracks. Above them the electrical power lines of the rail crackled. No trains were in sight.

"You can't help him, Bruce! It's not worth it!"

"Every life is worth it," he retorted and began climbing the scaffolding.

Selina whirled around, searching for a way out. She would never risk her life to save a random person, especially not from thugs like that. She'd seen up close how dangerous they could be—and forfeiting her life on a Friday night in a foolish attempt to save one other Gothamite in the wrong place at the wrong time was not how she envisioned going out. The scaffolding swayed as Bruce scaled another level and got even closer. It was Bruce's destiny, though, if the determined look in his eye was any indication.

She stalked to the end of her level of the scaffolding and checked below her, then looked back as Bruce pulled himself between the rails and onto the wood planks behind her.

"Selina. I'm sorry."

"For what?!" She shook her head. "Please don't be a hero; it won't make up for everything else, you know that, right?"

Bruce pursed his lips and put his hands on his hips. He took a step forward and Selina double-checked the abyss behind her. He glanced between her and the elevated train tracks once more, lingering on the assault going on across the next rooftop, and she made up his mind for him.

Selina jumped.

Bruce gasped and lunged forward to catch her but felt his hand closing on the chilled Gotham night instead of Selina's wrist. He caught his forward momentum on the railing of the scaffolding and looked below at Selina's petite form as she rolled over, wind knocked out of her, from where she'd landed on a large pile of sand in the construction site adjacent. Bruce cursed under his breath as she gingerly stood and began making her way down the hill. In his peripherals, as he followed her progress down the hill and towards the large wooden fence preventing trespassers into the site, he noticed an elevated train making its journey across the Midtown Bridge.

A sense of purpose surged through him, flooding his system with adrenaline and Bruce deftly navigated back to the rooftop below. He skipped across to the next roof top and crouched behind an HVAC unit, watching as the clown-masked thugs began rushing to tie their victim to the tracks before the train arrived. Bruce rose and backpedaled to the edge of the building. He breathed deeply three times and exploded into a sprint. Timing his steps perfectly, he planted right on the raised lip of the roof and catapulted himself like an Olympic long jumper across the empty street below the train tracks. His elbow hooked around a support beam and he swung the other arm up as well, using a vertical support to help wriggle his way into a crouch on the beam below the tracks.

He could look up and see the soles of the combat boots worn by the thugs—all of whom were too consumed with their task to notice him. Bruce glanced up at the ledge above him, which encased the tracks upon which the hooded victim was being tied. Bruce shimmied down the beam until he was directly below a thug. He jumped up, grabbing the ledge with his fingers facing back towards himself, and swung his legs back and forth like a pendulum twice. On the third swing, he tightened his core and, in a move perfected in the gymnastics training rooms at Cambridge, swung his body in an arc above the ledge. His feet surged into the back of one thug, Bruce's entire body following the swing as he let go of the ledge and flew blindly through the air to land in a crouch on top of the tracks, facing outwards. The thug flew forwards, smacking his forehead on the harsh iron of the track and blacked out.

Bruce pivoted before the other thugs could react, closing the distance to the other on the outside edge, and snap-kicking him in the chin as he stood from tying the victim's feet to the tracks. The thug dropped thickly, thudding against the thin gravel strip bordering the tracks themselves. Before the other thugs could draw their weapons, Bruce hopped over the tracks to the inboard side, pressing the first one's shoulders down as his knee rose to impact his nose. Cartilage and bone gave way in spite of the mask he wore; his shout of pain echoed across the rooftops.

Stepping over the man as he cradled his face, Bruce closed inside the final thug's reach and parried to desperate punches before delivering two thunderous body blows of his own and a final jab to the jaw that dropped his adversary to the gravel. He crouched and tugged the hood off the victim. The unconscious visage of Strike Force member Lyle Bolton greeted him. Breathing heavily, Bruce looked over his shoulder at the large white headlight of the train as it grew closer and closer, and then he gazed down the tracks ahead. Up the tracks perhaps fifty yards away, a large lever was rusting from disuse.

Sprinting along the tracks while hazarding a glance back every few steps, Bruce raced to the emergency break. He skidded to a halt on the gravel and grasped it with both hands. He squeezed the release lever and began straining to pull the entire break down towards his feet. It groaned and fought back with equal fervor. Bruce glanced back at the train as it barreled down the track towards Bolton and pulled at the brake even harder.

The gravel started to shake around his dress shoes as the train grew closer—and then with a mournful wail the brake gave way, cutting power to the lines running above the track. He slumped over the brake and looked back down the track where the train driver was leaning out the window and simultaneously engaging the brakes on the wheels rolling along the track.

Bruce stood and slowly walked back towards the near-crash, pulling out his cell phone to call Captain Gordon as he got closer. All four thugs were lying immobile on the tracks or gravel around Bolton, the train stalled not twenty feet away from his hulking form. Gasping for breath, Bruce lowered himself to the gravel and sat, legs dangling off the edge as the phone finally acquired service and began to ring.

Below him, down the street a block, Selina perched on a dumpster and watched as Bruce glanced in futility along the street for her. She was shrouded in shadows but could make him out perfectly in the harsh glare of the train headlight. She cocked her head thoughtfully, smirked, then hopped down from the dumpster and disappeared into the night.

 **A/N:** So hopefully that was worth the wait?!


	16. Chapter 15

**A/N:** An almost regular update! What is the world coming to?! **East Coast Captain** , hopefully this sates your spring holiday wishes...if anyone thinks they've caught all the Easter eggs so far, I'd love to hear those theories. Review and comments and speculation are always welcome too! I'm shooting to have another chapter up early next week. Thank you for the support so far; it means far more than I can put into words.

 **Chapter 15**

A crowd gathered on the sidewalk below the train tracks as the morning commuters discovered that the Grey Line was not running on schedule due to 'unforeseen track maintenance,' the irony of which was nothing lost on Gordon as he stepped carefully towards his uniformed colleagues: the circumstances of the delay were plain to see for every commuting Gothamite. Police and transportation authority security swarmed the near-crash site like navy-blue colored ants as sirens whirled silently below and news helicopters flitted overhead. In the middle of the tempest, Lyle Bolton was sitting on the front step of the halted elevated train-an EMT was hunched over him dabbing at a cut on his forehead with some gauze-and right next to him, leaning against the dirt-stained metal train car was an exhausted-looking Bruce Wayne.

The young billionaire sported two days' stubble that was partially effective at masking the grime and weariness of an exerting all-nighter spent in The Narrows. His button-down may have started out pristine white the previous evening, but Jim knew all to well how one could end up just as Wayne's looked now: smudged and hued nearly beige from grease, sweat, dirt, and oil. Gordon scratched the back of his neck and nodded in Bruce's direction as he stopped in front of Bolton.

"How're you holding up?"

"I'll live, Captain. Had some help with that, apparently." Bolton jerked his head towards Wayne, wincing as the medic patted a cut with antiseptic.

"Please stay still," the medical technician chastised exasperatedly.

"Sorry," Bolton grumbled and sat stoically as a pen light peered into his eyes.

"Do you remember any details about how you ended up here?" Gordon put his hands on his hips and suppresses a shudder at the crisp morning breeze cutting along the River a couple blocks away.

"I was at home last night—I think it was last night—when these guys broke in, drugged me, and put a sack over my head. All I remember was the shapes in the dark and that they sprayed some sort of gas in my face. I, uh," Bolton frowned, struggling to recall details-or attempting to avoid telling them, "I was struck over the head and passed out and next time I woke I could hear a lot of noise, like industrial noise, and…"

"And what?" Gordon stared at Bolton, his face grim.

"There was this laugh. I don't know, sir. It was the creepiest thing I've ever heard and whoever it was seemed to be in charge. You alright, Captain?"

"Huh?" Gordon blinked, unable to mask the pallor in his expression. He swallowed and furrowed his brow. "Any idea if the other team members were held there too?"

"I didn't hear them, but I guess it's possible. They knocked me out again before bringing my happy ass here-and I say that a little tongue-in-cheek because the bastards thought it'd be funny to knock me up with some laughing gas and then club me every time I so much as giggled."

"Sir," interrupted the medic cautiously. "I need to do a full assessment of Officer Bolton, if you don't mind."

Gordon patted Bolton on the shoulder and shook his head in the medic's direction. "Do your thing, doc. Bruce, a word?"

The two men walked down the track side-by-side until they were out of earshot of the other GCPD and other law enforcement types. Gordon halted and turned to face Bruce.

"I don't know what sort of luck you have, being in the thick of things again, but I'm grateful. Thanks."

"I was out for a walk and heard the thugs struggling with getting his body into position. Bolton's not small by any means."

"A walk? In The Narrows after midnight?" Gordon asked skeptically.

Bruce blushed. "Selina may have been with me.

"So why didn't she stick around?"

Bruce frowned. "She didn't even get involved. When have you known her to stick her neck out if it wasn't in her best interest?"

"Once or twice, but you have a fair point. Have you found anything out about the museum?"

"Nothing," Bruce lied emphatically, shaking his head. "And I'm not going to."

"She wouldn't tell you?" Gordon shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked up at the taller man. "She's always had a soft spot for you. I thought maybe—"

"Selina keeps her own counsel now. I'm not exactly her most trusted confidante any more, and I'm not willing to push her farther away over this."

"What are you saying, Bruce?"

Bruce straightened, shedding the night's weariness instantly. "I won't spy on Selina, Jim. She means too much to me to lose her again. I think you've got your hands full with these clown crimes as it is; Bolton's story wasn't painting a rosy picture."

Gordon chewed his lip in thought. He arched both eyebrows simultaneously before smiling weakly. "It doesn't; you're right. We have to find my guys before it's too late. And we're running out of time."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Bruce nodded down the tracks where Alfred stood on the next platform, waiting like the most proper sentinel imaginable. "Let me know when you find them."

Gordon shook his hand and breathed heavily. "I will! And if you change your mind about Selina…"

"I won't," Wayne asserted, throwing the promise over his shoulder as he walked away. The message was clear: Gordon's meddling attempt had backfired spectacularly and now Wayne was making it personal.

Jim rubbed his goatee and waved at Alfred before walking back to the cluster of police and transit authorities still picking up the pieces. And with every step, Bolton's frightened testimony of a maniacal laugh chewed at his subconscious. It fit all too well with his mystery phone call the day before, a call that kept him up with a fifth of a friend from Kentucky most of the evening.

When liquor couldn't solve the riddles of his mind, Jim knew exactly who could. He checked his watch and picked up his pace. Driving to Hell's Crucible in rush hour could be murder. The thought mocked Gordon in it irony as he descended to street level. Was there any other kind of humor than the darkest of the dark in Gotham anymore?

* * *

"Mom! Mom! Dad's here," exclaimed Barbara Gordon as she bounded through the doorway followed closely by a ruefully smiling Jim Gordon.

"Jim! What brings you by this morning? Leslie asked without preamble. She stood and moved gracefully around the desk to give her ex-husband a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and short embrace. The doctor took a step back and studied him. "You look terrible."

"Is that your professional diagnosis?"

"Mostly just honest observation." She paused, wanting to add another comment, but the look in Gordon's eye made her pause.

"Bolton was almost killed this morning. Bruce happened to be in the area and stopped some clown thugs from tying him to the tracks and getting run over by the morning commuters."

"Bruce?! Where? When?" Leslie pictured the militaristic suit she'd been privy to seeing earlier that week. She couldn't imagine he would let Jim know about his vigilante aspirations-the former detective wouldn't be supportive in the slightest.

"Sometime early this morning down in The Narrows. He was with Selina and apparently had a crisis of conscious and helped stop them."

"Is Mr. Bruce alright? Barbara asked in a timid voice. She turned around from pretending to read one of her mother's instructional posters on coping with stress. "I still wanted him to show me some of the stuff he learned in Japan. Gee Jit-"

"Jujutsu, dear?" Leslie smiled as Barbara nodded solemnly. "Yes, it sounds like he can still do that."

"Good 'cause there's something I want to ask him about my program too! He's really smart for an adult," she opined seriously.

"And what about us?" Her mother asked in mock offense.

"We're pretty smart too, baby girl," Jim agreed as Leslie sat back down behind her desk and Jim took a seat.

"Yeah, but you're my parents," Barbara said as if that justified everything.

Jim turned to his daughter. "Bruce is fine. He did a very brave thing this morning and saved the life of somebody that I work with."

"Is this about those clown guys and the zoo yesterday? I read an editorial this morning that said Dad should be fired if any more Strike Force died."

"You were reading what?!" Jim balked, storm clouds darkening his features. "Who wrote that?"

"Some reporter in Metropolis named Lane. She seemed very indignant; must be a slow news week over there. I have my database searcher set up to find all articles with your names in them," Barbara informed them excitedly.

"Barbara, honey," Leslie began slowly. She was incredibly proud of her supremely intelligent daughter, but sometimes her enthusiasm got the best of her—just like someone else Leslie knew. "You can't believe everything you read in the papers and especially opinion pieces. That's just what that one woman thinks and it doesn't mean your dad is going to get fired."

"Oh I know! I just wanted to share it." Her short legs swung back and forth above the floor merrily as she smiled at her parents.

Jim grimaced back and turned to Leslie, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees. "Lee, I've got a weird feeling about all this with Strike Force. It's too personal after all the initial attacks that were completely random."

"Part of me says you're paranoid, but then again, this is Gotham. And I'll admit that I've had a weird feeling of being watched the last couple days when I leave in the evenings. What are you thinking, Jim?"

"That whoever is behind this is someone that has a personal vendetta against you and I, against the Gotham establishment. Something Bolton said…" Gordon trailed off as he omitted his own eerie phone call and discomfort while at the hospital the previous night.

"Like who, Jim?" Leslie noticed Barbara was staring at her father in fascination, no doubt hoping for something to search later. Leslie frowned and looked at her watch. "Oh my gosh; I completely forgot about the interview this morning! Can you take Barbara by school?"

"Of course. Come on, little bird," Jim said with a forced smile. He stood and his daughter pouted as she slid out of her chair.

"But you and Mom talk about so much more interesting things than school and I _love_ school!"

As Barbara hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders, Jim waited by the door mulling the morning's developments. Leslie stood and escorted them out to the lobby; as they approached the small room, Gordon saw a young stunning blonde-haired woman sitting in one of the two waiting chairs. Her foot bopped up and down to an invisible beat known only to her and she loudly smacked a piece of bubble gum. Upon seeing Doctor Thompkins enter, however, she hastily extracted the gum and dropped it in the trash next to her seat. Jumping up with an enthusiasm for meeting someone Jim could never remember possessing in his early twenties, the young woman smiled brilliantly.

"Gee, it's really you, ain't it? Doc Thompkins in the flesh. I'm sooo excited to meet you and the Professor. When I saw the internship announcement on campus, I thought, 'Puddin, that's something you can't pass up, no way no how!' So here I am!"

Jim cast an incredulous glance at his ex-wife, who to her credit merely winked at him and turned her attention to the prospective intern. The doctor smiled warmly and gestured for the young woman to follow her back to her office, leaving Jim and Barbara to find their way out past the burly guard.

"She sure had a lot of energy," commented Barbara as they descended the steps to the street. Jim's unmarked sedan was a block away; he took his daughter's hand in his and let the other hang inches from his hip holster, ready to draw the pistol if necessary. Hell's Crucible was no neighborhood to be trifled with—

Gordon grunted as a man in a purple leather jacket and a low-worn flat cap jostled him and continued walking as if nothing had happened. Gordon turned as he patted his pockets confirming the man hadn't swiped his wallet.

"Watch where you're walking, pal," Gordon called testily. He stopped at the intersection as the man turned slightly. The cap was pulled low enough he couldn't see the man's eyes, but the lower half of his face was cast in faint shadow, making the grin he sported seem almost insane rather than boyishly charming.

"My mistake," he rasped, voice trailing into a giggle as he continued on his way. Gordon felt Barbara tugging at his hand, a counteracting force to the goosebumps covering every inch of skin on his body.

"Dad, come on! We'll miss the light," she insisted, pulling him towards the car. Jim crossed with his daughter and helped her into the backseat. He cast a final look back in the direction of the clinic, but the man was gone.

"Dad, what is it?" Barbara asked worriedly as Gordon continued standing on the sidewalk, car door open. He peered in at his daughter and smiled.

"Nothing, sweetie." He shut the door and slowly walked around to the driver's side, hand shaking uncontrollably and his gaze flicking back down the street again. "Daddy's just seeing ghosts."

* * *

"I'm bloody coming. You try answering when the front door of a mansion with seventy-four rooms goes and you're in the farthest one," Alfred grumbled as he walked into the foyer, wiping his hands on a hand cloth. He tucked it into a pocket and straightened his vest before pulling open the iron door.

"How may I be of assistance tod—" His greeting died in his throat as he stared at his visitor. Lucius Fox stood head down as he studied his black leather shoes waiting on Alfred to answer. But it was the backdrop behind Mr. Fox that stole the butler's speech. He stared mutely at the three large matte black moving trucks as Fox looked up.

"Afternoon, Al. Sorry if I'm imposing. Is Bruce home?"

"Sorry; I'm afraid not. He had a meeting with some Gothcorp executives about a joint contract of some sort," Alfred paused as he studied Lucius' expression and it became clear the Wayne Enterprises executive knew precisely where Bruce was at the present time. "But you already know that, so why don't you hop to the part where you tell me what's in these lorries, mate."

"Some discontinued and surplus equipment Bruce wanted to tinker on; is there somewhere I can have them unload?"

Alfred set his jaw and gestured with an out swept arm towards the corner of the house. "The garage is just around that way; I reckon that will be best until Master Bruce returns."

"Thanks, Alfred." Fox extended a hand, which Pennyworth took after a moment. He looked back at the first truck and pointed up the gravel drive towards the entrance to the garage. As the truck's engine coughed and kicked into gear, he said tersely, "I hope Bruce knows what he's getting into."

"So do I, Lucius. So do I."


	17. Chapter 16

**A/N:** A note on continuity: I try to be vague and include as much of S2 as possible as canon for this story; however, the developments, particularly involving Hugo Strange, don't mesh with what I had envisioned here, so I'm taking everything through the events of 'Worse than a Crime...' as canon and then picking and choosing the other stuff that fits! Deal? Deal. Also, I caught a small continuity error of my own within the story that has been corrected now (kids don't go to school on Saturdays in Gotham).

Thus, Gotham's not mine; I'm just doing this for fun.

 **Chapter 16**

"Sir…Captain Gordon, sir? Your phone?"

"Huh? Oh, right; thanks," said Gordon distractedly to the junior traffic cop as she grimaced sympathetically and looked back above their heads in sadness. Jim looked down at his phone, noting the caller's identity, and accepting the call. "Gordon."

"Jim, this is getting out of hand," said the Commissioner without preamble. Gordon rolled his eyes in exasperation and silent agreement. "I reinstated Strike Force so you would have the capability to track down the people responsible for the attacks last month, not so that the unit could become a symbol of this force's inability to keep Gotham safe."

"Sir, just give me a little more time," Gordon said through gritted teeth. "I'm close to catching this guy. I can feel it."

"Do you have a name?" the Commissioner asked skeptically.

"No, sir."

"A face? Prints? DNA?"

"Not yet."

"Then you have nothing, Gordon. You've got until Wednesday to sort this mess out, then I'm going to take drastic measures."

Gordon put a hand on his hip, whirling angrily—his tan sport coat whipping in the wind. "'Drastic measures?' Like what, exactly?"

"I have a few options in mind. In the meantime, I recommend you start working to replace the team members you've lost. Whoever's doing this…he's not done yet."

Gordon hung up, clenching the mobile in his fist angrily before slipping it into his jacket breast pocket. He rubbed at the back of his neck and gazed up into the morning grey. His eyes lingered on a news helicopter several block away before shifting to the focal point of the entire area.

Gordon, nearly two dozen law enforcement officials and rescue personnel, and an equal number of reporters and photographers were congregated on the cobblestones and amongst the deserted tables of cafés that covered the plaza. Maple and elm trees dotted the space as well—as one of the few parks in downtown Gotham, the plaza was usually bustling with early morning business types and bankers brokering deals and waiting for the morning bell. Since the area was developed two years prior—it was one of the few successful accomplishments the current mayor could claim in his bid to transform Gotham into an 'Olympic-caliber city,' as his campaign slogan promised.

The centerpiece of the plaza was a building at the northern end, its limestone edifice rising high above the modern combination apartment-shopping developments surrounding the plaza. The imposing building jutted into the skyline, its statues and sculptures shining in the morning sun as they surrounded a wide terrace, which in turn wrapped around the core of the building as it rose further into the air. Above the terrace, the iconic ivory face of Gotham Clock Tower glistened, massive iron Roman numerals ringing the face of it, as it looked down upon the plaza.

On this Monday, however, the denizens and bankers and businessmen and -women were constrained to the far corner by a police cordon and transportable metal fencing. Every onlooker's gaze was aimed high above at the tower—and at the police operation currently unfolding high above street level on the terrace. Supervisors in the blue uniforms of the GCPD milled about on the terrace, talking into radios to their counterparts a dozen stories below on the ground.

Overlooking the entire macabre scene, the hands on the clock were stuck in positions that made little sense for half nine: the hour hand still pointed just above the Roman numeral three while the minute hand was nearly parallel as it rested between the I and the X indicating that the time was something approaching 2:45 in the morning. Nevertheless, this curiosity paled in comparison to the horrifying accents to the whole picture: from each of the misplaced hands on the clock swung two small dark shapes.

At least, from Gordon's perspective they were small, dark blobs swaying ominously in the wind. He knew that the gruesome report from the terrace above was that the two shapes were the lifeless bodies of the last two members of his hand-picked Strike Force team, grotesquely displayed for all of Gotham to see on this Monday morning. Jim Gordon felt nausea rage in his stomach and he covered his mouth, looking away from the clock.

A camera flashed mere feet away and Gordon blinked in shock, stumbling back a step as he stood upright—adrenaline counteracted the nausea from a moment before and he snarled at the young, indolent reporter, who would rather take a candid photograph of a sickened police captain than the scene behind him.

Gordon's lip curled as he roughly snatched the camera out of the man's hands. "You think this is funny?!" He hurled the camera at the cobblestones, shattering lens audibly and sending the digital innards of the camera skittering in all directions. He stepped over the remains, pieces crunching under his footsteps, and grabbed the photographer by the collar.

"You ambulance-chasing, opportunistic son of a bitch, how dare you?!"

"Captain! Jim!" the voice cut through the morning wind coldly and suddenly Gordon felt himself being dragged backwards by burly hands. He struggled, twisting enough to see the thick neck and heavy brow of Lyle Bolton as the only surviving Strike Force member pulled his captain back from the brink. "Easy there, Captain."

Gordon wrenched himself out of Bolton's arms and smoothed his jacket. The photographer hadn't moved, his knees shaking and his glasses askance on his nose. Gordon looked around the plaza as his breathing slowed, and then he pointed up at the tower. "Cut them down. Now!"

As Bolton started shouting the order towards the other officers, Gordon stalked away, disappearing around a corner into an alley, where he vomited violently into an uncovered trash can as he held his tie out of the way and dry heaved repeatedly. What drastic measures could possibly fix this?

* * *

The death of the last two Strike Force members played on every television screen in Wayne Tower, or so it seemed to Bruce as he roamed the halls. Every department reception room had the flat-screens on the walls or mounted on corner brackets blasting the coverage or pundits on national talk shows talking about the descent into lawlessness currently gripping the nation's second largest city.

Bruce passed the reception desk for Research and Development; he ignored young woman sitting at the desk who looked up at his passing, but almost immediately was distracted by the news program cutting back to the live feed showing the first body being lowered down to the terrace around the Clock Tower's pinnacle. Bruce turned a corner and padded along the carpeted hall through a set of swinging double doors and turned once again before slowing in front of a keypad-locked metal door. He glanced over both shoulders before punching in the eight-digit code he received from Lucius via encrypted email the previous evening.

There was a soft click and a light blinked green on the keypad—Bruce slid the door sideways smoothly and stepped into the narrow elevator. He pressed his thumb to the fingerprint identification pad next to the elevator's emergency controls as the door slid closed with a hiss. There was a second beep that echoed in the confined space and the lift began its descent, surging downwards expeditiously.

Finally, it slowed to a stop well below street level, and the sliding door opened to reveal a tiled hallway with white-washed walls and particle drop-ceiling tiles, fluorescent lights illuminating a maze of halls winding through the laboratories. Bruce stepped confidently out of the elevator and headed deeper into the labyrinth, following an innate sense of direction as every passage looked identical to the one before it; no labels adorned the doorways or intersections.

After several minutes, Bruce found himself in front of a sealed set of double doors nearly fifteen feet high and several inches thick, their slate grey metallic exterior standing out rudely from the white surroundings. He placed his entire palm on a pad to the right of the door and allowed the iris scanner to pass across his eye. With a soft chime, the doors hissed as hydraulics slowly pulled them inward.

Following the doors, Bruce stepped into a mammoth storage vault, rows and rows of securely locked chests, safes, and storage containers stacked nearly three stories high and organized in no discernable pattern. Despite the initial impression of randomness, Bruce knew that there actually was a pattern: the stacks of discontinued and surplus equipment was stored by year and then sorted by identification number—the previous evening's tour provided by Lucius was illuminating and reassuring to Bruce that, no, he would never want for shurikens or grappels or radio communications equipment to replace the meager supplies encompassed by his original request of Mr. Fox the previous week.

But he wasn't there to stock up on equipment and supplies that Monday afternoon. He was there to catch a thief.

In the murky darkness that pervaded the storage vault—the only light was provided by the opening of the door—Bruce could barely make out the end of the rows immediately in front of his face. He slipped into the vault and began moving to the far end as the doors hissed and began closing automatically behind him. Quicker than he expected, Bruce was shrouded in pitch darkness, only the soft red light glowing over the vault entrance provided any indication where the emergency exit was located should he need to escape.

Bruce reached the end of the row and ducked to the left, heading several rows further up before doubling back towards the front wall of the vault. He neared the front of that aisle and crouched, his left shoulder and back facing the entrance to the vault.

He'd been awake most of the weekend, unpacking the deliveries Fox made with Alfred, personalizing them—ensuring that they no longer possessed any markings traceable to Wayne Enterprise—and further modifying them to fit in with the thematic persona he'd been thinking about since that morning when a single leathery mammal filled him with a purpose he'd been yearning for since he originally left Gotham City so many years earlier. And during those countless hours toiling in the cave below the study—a secret hideaway that once belonged to his father and was now transformed into his own personal armory, intelligence gathering center, and, if necessary, trauma center—his mind drifted; primarily, it drifted to Selina. Bruce considered himself able to focus with laser-like precision on a problem; that talent in particular was the focus of many lessons in meditation during his Far East travels. Nevertheless, throughout the weekend, his focus was not on the task at hand, nor the kidnapped Strike Force team members as his computers whirred and churned, processing terabytes of data. On the contrary, his focus rested on the stunning young woman his Thursday night dinner date cut in her breathtaking dress, or on the way she felt nestled once more under his arm on a blustery Gotham rooftop (unsurprisingly it was the precise feeling of wholeness that scared him so at the age of sixteen before he fled), or the tinges of betrayal in her voice after she realized that he sussed out her involvement in the museum theft of a month previous. Rationally, Bruce knew that Selina knew not of his implicit agreement with Gordon—and thus could not know of his distancing from the Captain and his refusal to feed information about Selina to him moving forward in the investigation. The introspective part of Bruce's subconscious cynically wondered if this was truly the first time in his life he'd allowed himself to make a decision based upon how it might negatively affect his relationship with someone else, or how it might hinder any prospects for their future relationship, whatever form it may take.

There was a tinkling of metal brushing against metal above his head and further away from the entrance. Bruce snapped out of his reverie and squinted into the darkness as his eyes adjusted and he could see a lithe form slink out of a narrow air duct and onto the top row of storage shelves. The form dropped to the ground with uncanny agility and rose from a crouch into a haughty posture Bruce had admired one too many times when its possessor was not looking…and maybe once or twice when he knew she was.

Selina Kyle looked right past his hiding place and then turned and headed the opposite direction deeper into the vault; Bruce rose and followed cautiously. The two of them moved along the shelves of the vault beneath Wayne Enterprises like synchronous wraiths, matching invisible move for invisible move. Finally, she paused before a large metallic crate with a padlock on the front. After peering left and right suspiciously, she popped the padlock open with a quick jerk directly downwards. Seconds later, the top of the crate rose slowly in the darkness and Selina leaned forward to peer into its depths—

"Don't even think about it," she snapped, a steely edge to her voice that matched the shimmering knife Bruce found quivering just in front of his neck. He swallowed and held his ground as Selina rose, an unmarked container in her right hand. She eased the container cover down with that same hand and wrist before finally turning to appraise her ambusher.

"Bruce?!" The shock in her voice surprised him; that she kept her hand steady and the knife pointed directly at his windpipe did not. Her head cocked to one side and her eyebrows canted downwards as she tried to work out his unexpected presence in the vault.

"You're not supposed to know this place exists, Selina," Bruce admonished, raising his hand and gently lowering her knife.

"And you're not supposed to take a girl on a date and then accuse her of grand larceny," she retorted.

"Touché." Bruce smiled roguishly. "But you're still not leaving with those."

"Leaving with what?" Selina asked with innocent eyes and a guilty smile as she held up empty, fingerless glove-clad palms. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Bruce lunged to grab her wrist, but she danced away, darting down an aisle into the vault. Sighing softly, he pivoted and began jogging back towards the large double doors, glancing down each row of shelves—

Out of the darkness a long aluminum bar swung across his path at chin level; Bruce dropped to his knees, his momentum carrying him forward as he slid underneath the unexpected obstruction and he twisted onto his side, grabbing Selina's ankle as she stood off balance from swinging the long pole. He tugged and she yelped in surprise as she fell. Selina landed on her toes and palms, head snapping backwards to look at Bruce as he slowly rose into a crouch, chest heaving.

"What the hell was that for?!" He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and rose to his full height as she did likewise.

"Get out of my way." Selina stepped forward towards the door, but quickly found her path cut off.

Bruce shook his head. "Absolutely not, Selina."

Her eyes flashed with betrayal. "You know, for a while the other night I thought you'd changed. I almost allowed myself to think…whatever, it doesn't matter anymore."

"Think what, Selina?" Bruce stepped forward tentatively, his right hand rising of its own accord to raise her chin. Tilting her head back and making eye contact, Bruce saw the tears brimming, her lip quivering as she struggled in vain to keep her emotions contained. "That I cared about you—for you? That you were special to me; that I regretted leaving? For a few hours you let yourself indulge in us and it scared you."

Selina backpedaled as the space between them shrunk and the shelves seemed to squeeze in around her. She shook her head valiantly. "It was a lie," she whispered, voice hoarse with unshed tears.

Unexpectedly, Bruce laughed, its melody both amused and filled with tragedy. His trembling hand slid along her jaw and Selina hated how she turned into it even then. "No, not a lie, Selina. There's a difference between when I'm lying and when I have no tact."

She put a hand on his chest—lips curling into a small frown—as if trying to place one last desperate impediment between her and the inevitable. "You accused me of stealing the necklace and now you've cornered me stealing from your own company. What are you trying to prove, Bruce?"

Looking down into her eyes, Bruce took her hand in his, encapsulating it with tenderness Selina never knew he possessed. "The same thing I tried to tell you at dinner: I've never seen you as a thief. After ten years, fifty countries, and more experiences than I can count, I've still yet to meet anyone like you, to feel _right_ around someone like I do when—"

Selina closed the remaining inches between them before she could give it a second thought, her free hand snaking around his neck and pulling lips down to meet hers in an interruption that she couldn't resist. His thumb rubbed small circles on her cheek as they stumbled backwards against a shelving unit, jostling the storage crates behind her. As he tilted her head to change the angle of the kiss, Selina purred to herself at the familiarity of it, the simplicity of his actions; the lack of pretense or expectation that still eroded her composure. Just as it had when they were teenagers, Bruce seemed perfectly content to kiss her until neither of them was able to breathe.

For once, however, she was surprised as Bruce broke the intimate embrace first, resting his forehead against hers and catching his breath. She realized she was smiling and struggled to contain her elation. She licked her lips, nearly brushing his as well with the action.

"I missed you," she whispered, barely able to see him in the darkness, but she could feel his smile and the resumption of their kiss told her all she needed to know.

 **A/N** : So, was the payoff worth it? Please let me know what you thought below!


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

A light drizzle was falling, shrouding the distant wrought-iron gate and imposing stone wall around Wayne Manor in a menacing fog. Two cars sat bumper-to-bumper in the circular drive, droplets of water trickling down their hoods and splattering against the gravel drive beneath their wheels. With a heavy sigh suggesting the stresses of his job were near to consuming him in a way he'd not felt since the final push to apprehend the Penguin, James Gordon turned back to the monolithic door and pounded on it a second time. His trench coat was thoroughly soaked through and he gritted his teeth against a shiver.

There was a heavy _thunk_ of a bolt being thrown and then the door slowly opened. Gordon stepped inside as Alfred held the door and nodded in greeting and deference.

"Captain Gordon, I do appreciate you coming on such short notice."

Gordon gave the butler a half-smile, "It didn't sound like I had much of a choice."

"Quite right." The butler firmly shut the door and swept his hand towards a spiraling staircase recessed into the wall to Gordon's left. "We're in the old servant's kitchen; this way."

Gordon shrugged out of his coat, folding it over his forearm and following Alfred downstairs. They emerged into the kitchen, Alfred resuming his duties at the range where a kettle was on, as Jim draped his damp coat on the back of a stool at the island on his way to greeting Leslie. She stood from her seat at the table and hugged him warmly.

"Hi, Jim," she said as they embraced. "Can you get Barbara from school this afternoon?"

"I thought this was her week with you?" he asked, exasperatedly, breaking the embrace.

"It was supposed to be, but Dr. Strange is gone this week and I'll have to be at the Clinic far too early tomorrow morning and I don't want her alone waiting for the bus."

"Lee," Gordon began with a pained expression; however, his rebuttal was interrupted by the whistling of the kettle. Alfred hoisted the offending item off the hot burner and quickly poured their tea as Leslie and Jim took seats at the table. Gordon looked between them. "So, whose idea was this little meeting?"

"That would be mine," Alfred admitted as he placed a cup and saucer in front of the former detective. A second plate of biscuits and Leslie's cuppa soon followed. Alfred took his spot at the table between the divorced couple. "I saw the ghastly news about the Strike Force and figured it was time we had a little…chat."

Gordon eyed the butler skeptically as the expatriate sipped at his tea. "About what?"

"About what we do going forward, Jim," Dr. Thompkins weighed in with a sigh. "Strike Force is done; there was speculation on the news today that the Governor might declare a State of Emergency and deploy the National Guard! Is that what you want?"

"You know that's never what I want!"

"Then what are we going to do about it?" Alfred uttered the question calmly and quietly; nevertheless, its weight hung over the table for several tense moments as Leslie helped herself to a biscuit and arched an eyebrow at her former husband. "You see, Captain, I find myself in a spot: on the one hand, I feel incredibly indebted that you refused to entertain Master Bruce's efforts to volunteer for the Strike Force as God knows I'd never forgive myself if something had happened to him…"

"And on the other?" Gordon asked, frowning in doubt as to where this was going.

"Well, you very well can't expect him or I to sit on the sidelines forever, can you? We're not fighters—"

"Al, don't lie," Leslie admonished with a condescending pat on his arm. "You can't hide your nature from us."

"Alright; true enough. _I_ won't sit on the sidelines any longer if the safety of this family is at stake."

"You think you'll become a target?" Jim asked, sitting back in surprise.

"I think it's bloody well likely. Who's this clown going to target, now he's expended all of his Strike Force targets? Why not go after the largest symbol of success and stability in all of Gotham? Why not Bruce Wayne?"

"Because I think he has another target in mind first," Jim admitted, glancing across the table. "Me."

"Jim, what are you talking about?" Leslie narrowed her eyes, nonplussed.

"I don't know—this is going to sound crazy." He shook his head. "Have you seen anything out of the ordinary around the clinic at all? Had any strange visitors or phone calls?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Although, it is Hell's Crucible, Jim; ordinary there is extraordinary anywhere else. What are you getting at?"

"I got a weird phone call last week," Gordon continued without acknowledging the question. He stared down at the table, his words coming out in a detached, almost clinical tone. "On the way back from the zoo; he talked like I knew who he was…and then outside your clinic with Barbara I thought I ran into somebody on the street who…it's impossible though."

"Alfred, do know what Jim's—"

"I haven't the foggiest," the butler said, eyes fixed on Gordon's exasperated face.

"I think…" He looked between the other two members of their impromptu council. "I think it's Jerome Valeska."

Alfred chuckled nervously. The pitter-patter of raindrops intensified on the breakfast nook's windows surrounding the table. "Mate, I think you need to explain yourself."

Leslie tilted her head in a way Gordon learned long ago meant she thought he was being completely unrealistic. "The kid Galavan unleashed before he killed him at a fundraiser for the Children's Hospital?"

"That's the one," Gordon confirmed with a guilty look.

"Jim, I know this has been a tough week, but that guy…that kid? He died a long, long time ago. I know; I was the ME."

Gordon winced and shook his head. "Where's the body? I double-checked. It was one of the bodies that disappeared in an accident after you signed them over—"

"Not something I'll ever forget," Thompkins interjected tersely. Gordon extended an open palm as if in accord with her admission.

"And what if…what if he was just—Lee, I'm not trying to say you were wrong, but haven't we thought people were dead and gone before? Sometimes it's not that simple."

Lee pursed her lips. "Only in Gotham could that make sense."

"Right, well if we're indulging in this flight of fancy, then why hasn't this Jerome chap shown his face yet? If I recall, he couldn't keep his face away from the cameras. It was all about theatrics with him."

"Alfred's right, Jim. Why hasn't he come forward and claimed responsibility? Again, if it's even him since he's _dead_."

Gordon shrugged. "I don't know; I didn't say I have all the answers. But I haven't been able to sleep and it's because I keep seeing that grin and hearing his laugh. This is what my gut is saying, Lee. It's saying he's coming for me."

Thunder cracked in the sky above the manor and the three sat silently as their tea went cold and rain streaked the nook's windows.

* * *

Another deep roll of thunder peeled across the Gotham sky and Bruce Wayne groaned and rolled over, his arm passing through thin air before landing on the warm imprint in the mattress next to him. He furrowed his brow, eyes still squeezed shut as sleep slowly retreated, and patting the bed in an expanding ring. Finding nothing, he lifted one eyelid and surveyed the room, its ambient light a darkly unnatural grey for late afternoon; the storm continued unabated casting the room in extended twilight. Wayne found the object of his search and smirked.

"Do I snore that loudly?" he asked jokingly. Selina unfurled from where she was nestled, knees tucked beneath her chin, in the corner of the finely appointed bedroom on a wingback chair. She placed one bare foot on the thick carpet, then the other as she stood and sauntered back to the bed, smirking herself as she watched Bruce's eyes trace every curve of her body with a reverence she'd never known possible to manifest in his gaze before settling on sway of her hips at the hem of the light tee she wore. He swallowed visibly and finally met her green eyes as she pressed a knee into the mattress and leaned over him to press a knowing kiss to his lips.

"You're silent as a dormouse," she whispered between kisses. Selina tugged back the covers and extended herself, pressing into his side and weaving a slender, bare leg between his. "But you know I get skittish during storms."

Bruce frowned, the simple statement cutting like a scythe through his confidence. "So your impulse was to hide in the corner when you had refuge lying right next to you in bed?"

She laid her head on his shoulder and stroked his bicep, solemn. Selina glanced up at his chin and then ducked her gaze. "I unlearned a lot of good habits that you gave me. Out of spite, I guess."

They lay silently for a beat as the rain came down outside her downtown apartment. Bruce rolled slightly and wrapped Selina in a tight hug. He kissed her forehead and she nuzzled into the crook of his neck and shoulder. "Give me a second chance to rebuild them, then?"

She smiled to herself and elbowed him, eliciting a pained groan. She wiggled around until she could look into his eyes again and smirked. "You're still on your first, B. It just took me a bit to come around to realizing that."

"I can't tell you how much I—"

His response was short-lived as her lips crashed into his again, insistent and almost greedy. Bruce rolled them into the ghostly outline she'd previously left in the mattress and reciprocated the kiss with equal fervor, any thoughts of departing her apartment to return to the Manor dashed as her hands tangled in his hair and he lost himself in the one person capable of making him feel like that was the only good decision he could make.

* * *

Morning rose over a Gotham City still struggling to cast off the encumbering weight of the previous night's' storm, thick fog pressing in off the bay and steely clouds loitering ominously around the antennae piercing skyward from a skyline filled with jagged edges. Beneath the grim sky, pedestrians side-stepped puddles as if sidewalks were minefields and the watery deposits were deadly devices. Cars snarled the highways and the local side streets, wipers ticking back and forth as random bursts of rain scattered across the city. The elevated trains and subways rattled back and forth through the heart of the city, metallic serpents slithering from station to station sardine-packed with commuters in damp overcoats and squishy shoes.

Captain Gordon's unmarked sedan splashed through a deep puddle gathering along the curb at the corner of the police station. He rounded the turn and parked in his designated spot; he let the engine idle for a moment as an impromptu shower doused the block in precipitation. He let it abate before shutting off the engine and briskly walking up the steps and through the main entrance of the station. Young officers deferred to his presence, moving out of his way and nodding curtly. Jim crossed the bullpen in a rush, waving off Detective Alvarez as he tried to intercept his boss. Nevertheless, the detective's concerned, "Captain, you've got a delivery in your office," slowed Gordon's rapid transit through the precinct.

"What was that, Alvarez?"

The Hispanic detective weaved his way around desks and up the short stairs to catch up with Gordon. "Sir, I just was giving you a heads-up that you've got a package. It was on the front steps when I came in this morning so I put it in your office—I think it's from Doc Thompkins' clinic. Kind of heavy, actually."

Gordon frowned deeply and pivoted, opening the double doors to his office. "I just saw Leslie last night. She didn't mention anything…" Gordon's train of thought derailed as he saw the box sitting on the corner of his desk. He crossed the hardwood and rotated it around to face him.

Unlike the package found in his office two weeks earlier, this one was properly addressed and stamped; however, a closer inspection of the addressee chilled Gordon to the core. He ran a thumb over his name, staring at the first letter of his name, the 'J' written in bright green and with a flourish that gave distinct prominence to that letter specifically. Gordon's mind wandered to the enormous 'J' drawn on the bottom of the first package—his reminiscence did not last long as Alvarez interrupted.

"Captain? Are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah. Thanks, Alvarez."

The detective hesitated, sensing that Gordon was dismissing him without providing the full story, but he departed the office nonetheless, tugging the door closed firmly so the blinds rustled as Gordon ripped the tape away and popped open the top flaps of the package and leaned over the desk, peering into its depths.

"No, no no no, Lee!" Gordon's despaired cries grew louder and louder as he backpedaled, hand fishing in his coat pocket for his car keys even before he reached the doors of the office. The blinds shook violently as he slammed the door behind him and ran across the bullpen towards the entrance.

Alvarez, barely returned to his desk, looked up, stunned as Gordon raced out of the precinct; the detective moved instinctively in the opposite direction, entering Gordon's office and investigating the box for himself. The contents found within stole his breath and he struggled to think clearly: The bronze plaque formerly affixed next to the front door of his ex-wife's clinic now rested snugly in the package on Gordon's desk, a bright red streak of spray paint through 'Dr. Leslie Thompkins, M.D.' implying her time leading the clinic was to be short-lived, and the maniacal green shimmer of HA HA HA HA HA HA staining the entire edifice with a malice that was palpable to Alvarez even without context of Gordon's first mystery package.

One fact was evident to Alvarez as he snatched the plaque out of the box and returned to the bullpen: Jim Gordon was going to need all the help the GCPD could provide him if he was headed to Hell's Crucible alone. As he crossed over to the desk of a colleague to set the response in motion, Alvarez was struck by a second revelation—without Strike Force available, even the GCPD might not be enough this time—and its implications carried a finality even he did not want to consider.

 **A/N:** Another cliffhanger?! Again? Reviews and favs and follows always welcome! Thank you thank you thank you for the amazing support thus far! I can't say enough how much it means. You all are awesome-keep it up!


	19. Chapter 18

**A/N:** Wow. Okay. So we've finally arrived! I think, given their history together, these two deserve to have their reveals in the same chapter. More to the point, that means I'm more nervous about getting this chapter right than any other! What does that mean? Feedback, please! In any and every form. The more is received, the quicker chapters are produced. Thank you in advance! Also, shout out to **Byz, East Coast Captain, L YNAL,** and the guests **Karina** and ' **guest** ' who reviewed ch 16, since I can't properly respond to the last two of you (if you're still reading): **K:** Batman is almost here! and I'm glad you are enjoying it so much. And **guest**...I don't have any plans to incorporate Sean Ornelas into this as he's an OC owned by TEDOG and so expertly used by FanWriter and Theriddler. If they give their blessing, maybe a cameo or Easter egg could be in order down the line...

Also, I still don't own Gotham or Batman...they're DC's and I'm just having fun.

 **Chapter 18**

"Alfred?! Al, open this door! I need to talk to Lee!" Gordon pounded on the door again, ignoring the throbbing pain building in his fist from the violent strikes against the heavy wood. The panic that followed him on the drive out to Wayne Manor was taking up residence on the front step with him; his balled fists were sweaty despite the mid-morning chill. "Bruce?! Somebody answer the damn door!"

As if to punctuate his frustrated shouts, the heavy door swung wide open, an uncomfortably calm Alfred Pennyworth standing in the exact same position as the previous afternoon. The sense of déjà vu loitering in the foyer washed over Gordon as he entered in a rush, breathing heavily.

"Lee? Is she here?"

"Jim? What's going on?" Bruce's questioning voice called from the study and Gordon glanced at the butler before crossing to the imposing study to his right.

Alfred hastily shut the door behind the police captain and followed to the doorway, clasping his hands behind his back as Gordon crossed to the desk dwarfed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and mammoth pieces of artwork and never-ending gold leaf. He shook the younger man's hand and turned to look back at Alfred.

"Is Leslie still here?"

"I'm not sure—" Bruce began tentatively; however he was interrupted by the butler.

"She left quite early this morning, 'fore Master Bruce returned from his escapades."

Gordon arched an eyebrow and looked expectantly at the blushing billionaire. His surprise was short-lived as the purpose of his visit reclaimed his attention. "Did she say where she was going?"

"She took a rather harried call from the clinic and seemed well upset about it; she was headed in early, I reckon."

"Ah, damn it, Lee…" Gordon stormed out of the study just as quickly as he'd arrived, pushing past Alfred and nearly breaking into a jog across the entrance hall.

"Captain Gordon, may I ask why you've arrived—and seem to be leaving—in such a state?" Alfred and Bruce paused in the middle of the foyer as Gordon heaved the front door open.

The police captain turned, lips set in a grim line. "Because I was wrong yesterday, Al. Jerome's not after me; he's after Lee."

Pennyworth's reliably composed demeanor wavered for a moment and Gordon took that flash of recognition as his cue to leave, running through the open door and down the steps to his car. Alfred turned to address his charge—and found himself alone in the foyer, classical music playing loudly from the study behind him: before Gordon was off the property, the hidden entrance to the cave was already opening, beckoning Bruce into its depths. Alfred closed the front door with shaking hands, the idea of the same lunatic responsible for the deaths of the entire Strike Force targeting the good Doctor Thompkins rattling him more than he could process.

The butler returned to the study, closing and locking the double door entrance the fireplace was just locking into its recessed position and he could hear Wayne's urgent footsteps rhythmically pounding down the cool stone stairway.

"Master Bruce? And just what exactly are you planning on doing?" He shouted down the stairs after him, pausing on the hearth and leaning forward under the mantle.

"I think it's time Gotham learned hope for justice didn't die with Strike Force." Bruce paused on the final step and looked back up towards Alfred. "And I'm going to save Leslie."

Standing upright in the study and smoothing out his three-piece tuxedo as Bruce entered the cave below, Alfred addressed the empty study. "Right then. I'll just bring the car 'round."

* * *

The Rolls-Royce eased to a stop in an alleyway as steam billowed behind it from a vent in the sidewalk, shrouding it from the prying eyes of passers-by on the sidewalk opposite. Alfred glanced at the rear-view mirror and his single passenger in the rear seat.

"You haven't said but one word since we left, sir. What exactly is your plan?"

Bruce Wayne looked up from the soulless empty eye sockets of the cowl in his hands, his eyes flicking from the rear-view mirror and up through the rear moon roof of the sedan. "Make it to the clinic unseen, find Leslie, get her out."

Alfred rolled his eyes as his charge tugged the cowl snug over his head depressed the button above his head, retracting the glass in the roof. "That simple, then?"

Batman aimed the hook at the end of the Wayne Enterprises-designed grapple gun through the moonroof and pulled the trigger, launching the hook to the rooftop above the alley. Just as it was latching into place and the wire began coiling to reel him up, he growled, "Simple doesn't mean easy."

In a rustle of his cape, he left Alfred alone in the car with nothing to do but close the moonroof and drive away with a purr of the Rolls engine.

* * *

The police base of operations three blocks away on the very edge of Hell's Crucible neighborhood borders buzzed with activity like a hive of yellow jackets, plain clothes detectives popping in and out of a sea of black-and-blue garbed police officer and S.W.A.T. members gearing up for yet another clown clash in the parking lot of an abandoned fast food joint. Jim Gordon secured the Velcro of his Kevlar chest and made his service pistol Condition I before placing it into his hip holster and tugging the bottom of his trouser leg over the back-up piece clasped to his ankle. Gordon stood and started making his way through the mass of activity towards the line of television monitors displaying various closed circuit television angles of the clinic's front entrance and the entrances of surrounding buildings. Their intelligence and his personal knowledge of the property identified an enclosed courtyard nestled between the clinic and the building behind it, but they had no way to enter the courtyard from the outside.

Jim patted a young technician on the shoulder. "Any changes?"

"No, sir. Still looks completely quiet from the street." He pointed at the massive delivery fan illegally parked half on the sidewalk at the steps of the clinic. On the screen, smoke curled from inside the twisted frame of the front door where a rocket's impact was clearly visible. "Nobody's entered or exited the truck in the last thirty minutes. No word from anyone inside."

The police captain thanked him and wound his way to the front of the parking lot where the rescue team was doing the final hot checks on their gear and weaponry. "Alright, listen up. We don't know how many of these clown thugs there are in there, but there are at least two friendlies. Check your targets. Move in pairs; everyone comes home today. We go in ten."

* * *

Crouching behind the built-up brick roof's edge of the building directly behind the Gotham Health Clinic for High Risk Children, Batman peered over the edge and into the dilapidated courtyard. The pitched roof of the clinic extended out on either side, dark in the overcast morning, stained wet from the previous night's rain. Below, three clown-masked thugs stood next to the vine-encased statue in the middle of the courtyard, guns of various sizes being held lazily as they kicked at the chipped tile and stone at their feet, their backs to the lurking vigilante. Rising slowly and perching on the brick, he narrowed his eyes and inhaled.

The black-clad vigilante jumped. A moment later, he spread his arms wide, a large cape unfurling like wings; it surface controlled his descent trajectory as he zeroed in on the middle of the three thugs. As he approached the ground, Batman snapped his knees up to his chest before extending them out at the last moment, angling his body like a long obsidian projectile careening out of a mid-air tube. His boots plowed into the thug's back, sending him to the ground and separating the rifle in his hands from his grip. The other two thugs were pulled to the ground in a tussle of limbs under the ensnaring confines of the cape. An errant gunshot discharged into the stone on the opposite side of the statue.

Batman landed in a crouch, one thug sprawled on the courtyard pavement in front of him, wind knocked from his lungs and a low moan emanating from his throat. The vigilante snapped an elbow up into the temple of the clown-masked goon behind his right shoulder, dropping that opponent; a pivot and smash of an open palm into the final thug's jaw left Batman as the only functional person left in the courtyard.

The residual tinnitus in his ear continued ringing as he slowly rose next to the vine-wrapped statue, hands clenched in fists at his side, and, in a glance, analyzed the easiest way to scale the stone-and-brick wall encasing the courtyard. Batman ran towards the nearest window, lunging forward and using the stone sill to push upwards and leap to grab the second level ledge. He vaulted over the ledge and onto the covered balcony extending along one side of the courtyard just as four more clown-masked henchmen burst through the double doors from Leslie's clinic and into the courtyard below.

"Hey! What the hell?!" Confused shouts and exclamations echoed throughout the courtyard. Batman crouched and padded along the balcony towards the door leading to the second floor of Leslie's clinic. He tentatively tried out the latch to the door—and found it was locked. Blinking, he glanced along the door jamb, noting that there was also a chain and a dead bolt securing the entrance—one lock would not be enough in Hell's Crucible. Sweeping part of his cape out of the way to access a hardened pouch on the utility belt wrapped snug around his waist, Batman withdrew a state-of-the-art lock pick and deftly inserted it into the door, unlocking the handle effortlessly. He was using the small blow torch on the opposite end of it to melt through the chain and deadbolt when he noted a different voice as it sliced through the clamor below his balcony hiding place.

"My, my, what a mess!" A series of wild giggles followed that sent goosebumps up Batman's arms beneath the hardened armor of the previously-monikered Future Combat Suit. Batman paused, door handle depressed but the seal of the door not yet broken. He strained to hear, and his efforts were aided by a sudden hush falling over the courtyard.

"Owww! Holy—what was that for, boss?"

"Nothing like a little prick to get you up in the morning," the chilling voice replied.

"You stabbed me!"

The new voice dropped in timbre. "And I'll stab you again somewhere you'll really regret if you don't tell me why the three of you are all…incapacitated."

"I..I don't know, honest, Mr. J! I swear. I think somebody attacked us. But I never saw him!"

Batman slipped the door open and stepped inside, easing it shut behind him just as screams of pain reverberated throughout the courtyard. He crossed the cramped consultation office silently, boots pressing into thick carpet. Quickly moving down the adjoining hall, he darted into another office just as a brass knuckle-clad clown thug wandered around the corner ahead with his head down—he looked up at the flash of movement, but frowned behind his mask at finding the hallway empty.

The thug walked slowly past the first office, his attention distracted by the scene outside the window on the other wall: his eyes grew wide watching the Boss as he slit the throat of the protesting thug, leaving his dead body to slump over the stone basin at the bottom of the statue. Then his eyes bulged as Batman glided out of the office and placed him in a choke-hold, dragging his body back into the office and easing his unconscious form to the floor.

* * *

'Mr. J' stepped away from the body spilling into the empty fountain, wiping the tainted metal of a switchblade on the side of his purple pinstriped trouser, a white glove-clad hand gripping the pebbled grip of the knife lightly. Deftly using one hand, he closed the blade and stashed the weapon. He strode back towards the double doors leading to the clinic leaving several thugs to trail hesitantly behind him. He pushed open the doors, arms extended out as he sighed dramatically.

"Doc! Good news—I think Jim's decided to join the fun," he addressed the woman bound and gagged in the chair behind her desk as he crossed her office, whooping in a celebratory fashion and rubbing his hands together.

Doctor Leslie Thompkins glared up defiantly at her captor as he leaned down, violently tearing the duct tape away from her face. She winced and turned her head for a moment, before looking back up at him.

"I don't think that's Jim," she retorted, attempting to catch her breath.

A large shadow rose in the corner, just out of the man's peripheral vision, but easily in Leslie's field of view. It slowly brought its chin up from the matte black, sharply defined symbol on the chest of its armor, standing to its full height and stepping in front of the doorway. It took a step towards the leader of the clown thugs as the menacing man turned away from his captive.

Leslie's attacker faced the black armor-clad vigilante, grinning psychotically. His eyebrows arched high and he smacked his lips while looking up and down the suit from cowl to boot. "Well, well! Aren't _you_ just…delicious?"

The switchblade snapped to life in his hand; his opponent's eyes flicked to it and then scanned up the arm of his purple pinstriped suit, across the faded orange vest cinched tightly over a rumpled white ruffled shirt, top buttons replaced by gold studs. He noted the strange, exotic and out-of-season flower adorning his lapel, clocked the teal-and-purple checkered bow tie, but his features commanded the most attention. The skin was far too pale—nearly eggshell in color—to be considered healthy and eerily smooth except for a jagged green-tinged scar on the left side of his neck. The muscles of his cheeks were inordinately tugged into the makings of a smile. The effect when he truly was smiling was terrifying, especially with the red smear of dried blood that surrounded and covered his lips and the sickly green of his combed over hair.

"You don't look too bad, for a dead man—Jerome." The caped intruder stalked across the office as the disfigured man cocked his head.

"Jerome? Jerome…" He stroked his chin in mock thought. His eyes widened and he thrust the knife-wielding hand into the air as if having a 'eureka' moment. "Oh! Good looking chap, 'bout my height…red hair? Haven't seen him in 13 years!" The man erupted in a maniacal fit of laughter and lunged forward.

Batman brought his forearm to parry the attack and grabbed his wrist, spinning him into the rattling gallery of diplomas and certificates adorning the office wall. Leaning close, an inch separating black eyeliner-rimmed eyes from the pointed nose piece of the cowl, Batman growled as they struggled.

"So…forward!" his opponent gasped in amusement. "Usually I like to wait until the second date for something like this—mmfph." The scarred man resembling Jerome Valeska grunted as he hit the floor and tumbled against the chair and rug. Batman spun and glowered over him as he scrambled backwards towards the far wall and the filing cabinets abutting it. "Wait!...Wait. Aren't we forgetting something?"

"What?"

"I'd feel terrible if my friends were left out!" The man twiddled in a fit of laughter as gunfire erupted from the courtyard, shattering the windows of the office. Batman spun and leaped, covering Leslie and pulling her and her chair to the ground behind the desk as bullets impacted the very same diplomas and certificates where he'd previously been standing.

He used the blades on his gauntlets to free her arms from their restraints and poked his head around the desk. Leslie's captor was hastily crawling through the open doorway on hands and knees. Batman exploded from behind cover, diving along the wall into a somersault and using his momentum to lunge forward and tackle his nemesis.

The two of them tumbled through a door into an exam room with one window into the courtyard; they struggled, ground-fighting, for control of the switchblade. They exchanged punches and elbows, rolling along the floor for supremacy. Batman twisted and rotated perpendicular to his opponent, nearly achieving an arm bar, but no-longer Jerome twisted as well, driving the switchblade down into a soft area just above the knee. Crowing in victory as Batman groaned in pain and released his arm to remove the knife, the villain raced to the open door before skidding to a halt and whirling around in a storm of purples and teals and oranges.

"In case you had as much fun as I did and want to get in touch…" He whipped a joker card from his breast pocket with a flourish and expertly flung it across the room at Batman's face as the masked man struggled to his feet. The vigilante turned away but saw it fall on the floor, the contorted jester leering up at him—and across the room at him. "That's Joker with one 'k,' if you're wondering, Mr…bat?"

He disappeared from the doorway leaving a trail of nauseating laughter in his wake. Batman saw him running across the courtyard towards the building opposite with his cadre of thugs easily falling into rear security, half of them turning their attention to his new exam room—moments later he was crawling on the floor under yet another flurry of bullets. He snagged a pellet from his belt and spiked it into the hallway as he stood and hobbled across to Leslie's office behind the smokescreen billowing out into the courtyard.

"Leslie! Come on!" He growled and walked in an awkward crouch across the room as occasional gunfire struck the wall above his head.

"Bruce? Is that you?" She looked up at him and took his hand, letting him lead her back into the smoky hallway and upstairs. Leslie noticed how he favored his left leg during the climb and tugged him to a halt. "You need to slow down!"

"I'm fine, Doc," he protested through gritted teeth. Ahead, the same clown-masked thug he'd incapacitated at the window before making his way downstairs stepped out of the office in which he'd been unceremoniously deposited. Just as he was turning to see them approach, Batman grabbed his head and slammed it into the door-frame. He collapsed in a heap and—after Batman snagged her wrist in one glove and pulled her over the body—the two of them continued down the silent hall to the consultation office leading out to the balcony overlooking the courtyard.

"Bruce!" Leslie came to a halt in the office and jerked her wrist out of his grasp. "You're hurt and I'm a doctor. Let me at least put something on that to stop the bleeding."

He contorted, reaching around to the small of his back where he detached a black case from his utility belt. Tossing it in an arc across the office to her outstretched hands, he grimaced. "Will a blow-out kit do for now?"

Ten minutes later, the balcony door eased open and Leslie ran the length of it to the end of the courtyard, her shoulder inches from the brick wall the whole time. She tentatively stepped forward when she reached the end and glanced up at the gables above her head, skeptically looking at the pitched roof.

"I don't see how we're going to climb up there without them seeing us." She looked back at where Batman was standing upright behind a pillar of brick, a massive bat-shaped shuriken— _or perhaps boomerang?_ Leslie mused silently—in his gloved hand as the other pressed some sort of black paste to one side of it.

"Because they'll be in no shape to cover the roof. Besides…we're going up there." He nodded at the ledge from which he'd first attacked the thugs still sprawled in the courtyard. The dead one still laid haphazardly into the fountain as the others lay against the basin groaning; two more fully conscious guards with guns stood at their feet next to the dry fountain, guns pointed at the back of Leslie's clinic—in short, oblivious to the rescue occurring on the balcony above their heads.

"And why will they be unable to cover—" Leslie cut her question short as Batman peeked around the pillar and let the batarang fly. With his left hand, he snagged Leslie's wrist as jerked her into his chest. The grapple gun appeared in his right and he hugged her to his chest plate while firing the gun a final time that day.

As the two of them were jerked skyward and over the rooftop to safety, the batarang arced through the sky and dropped down perfectly, striking the base of the fountain statue on the far side of the courtyard. On impact, the explosive putty detonated, fracturing the stone base. The statue wobbled and fell on top of the group of henchmen, debris pelting the ones spared the direct brunt of the falling stone, and eliciting a chorus of shouts and pained groans.

* * *

The large armored truck roared down the street towards the staging area, coming to a halt immediately in front of Gordon. He pounded on the hood in approval and jogged around to the back, counting loudly as each member of the rescue team climbed into the bay, ready to conduct the assault. He was nearing the last ones, mentally readying himself to hop onto the bench and be the first one out the door when they arrived, when a hurried voice carried across the street.

"Jim! Jim; stop, wait!"

He turned in amazement, jaw dropping slowly as Leslie walked out of an alley towards the horde of police officers and rescue personnel. He crossed the street towards her, enveloping her in a hug at mid-street, the clamor of the staging area tuned out of his mind. She was breathing quickly, nearly shaking.

"Lee? Lee, are you alright? How…?" He peered past her towards the alley, but was unable to make out the figured shrouded in shadow staring back towards him. "Was it him? Was it Jerome? Where is he?"

She chuckled nervously. "I'm in one piece if that's what you mean. And I don't know where he is now, but he's not Jerome; not anymore. He's calling himself The Joker, and as for how I escaped…" Leslie trailed off uncertainly. "I had some help."

"From who?" Gordon asked, bewildered. Movement in the alley where previously there had only been shadow caught his attention and he followed it as a winged form seemed to ascend from the alley past fire escapes and trellises to the rooftops above and disappear into the overcast morning on the tops of the buildings opposite their staging area.

Leslie followed his gaze and smiled knowingly. "The Batman."


	20. Chapter 19

**A/N:** Here we go with another chapter! Thank you for the incredible response to the last chapter and hopefully this doesn't disappoint. As I've mentioned previously, this has been outlined since the get-go, so it is fascinating that this chapter should be written immediately following Monday's episode. The BatCat parallels were startling to me. There's still story to go, though; fear not! I view this as the beginning of the Final Act of seven chapters, however. Thank you **midnight** for dropping an absolutely amazing review (!) and to the two ' **guests** ' and **koolcatgirl** , thank you wholeheartedly for the positive responses and excitement over one of this fandom's great OC's...in talking to TEDOG I definitely want to get any Sean inclusion right, and it looks like any sequel will be the best place for that...if a sequel is desired by everyone out there (well? Let me know!). Take care all, until next time!

Don't own 'Gotham' or 'Batman.'

 **Chapter 19**

The fireplace closed with a clang that echoed in his father's study. At least, in his mind it was still his father's study; on some level it always would be. Bruce, a damp towel hanging around his neck, ran his hand along a mahogany bookshelf and wandered in on an aimless path through the room, a youth chock full of memories in this very room playing back through his mind in the wake of that day's events. The one recurring emotion that consumed him during both the car ride to Hell's Crucible and the excruciatingly slow one back to Wayne Manor was the feeling that he was finally fulfilling exactly what his father envisioned when he hoped for Bruce to find a calling.

The Batman was that calling, Bruce knew without a doubt, and his first foray into that had been a success—save for the unfortunate escape of the man now calling himself The Joker. Bruce spent hours following his return to his family estate mulling over security camera footage and newsreels of both the morning's events (there wasn't much showing the culprits except the sketches made from Doctor Thompkins' inputs and those of her young assistant, a medical student at Gotham University who had seen, ostensibly, very little. The news reports about The Joker all made the tenuous connection to Jerome Valeska, giving them an excuse to bring on experts and run specials on that dark period in Gotham's past when the Maniax and the most vile in a line of corrupt, terrible mayors unleashed a wave of terror on the city. But none of that helped in the present, Bruce felt, except to boost ratings. What there had been a considerable lack of on the news was the mention of anyone but the police successfully ending the hostage situation at the Gotham Health Clinic for High Risk Children. He wasn't sure whether that was Gordon's decision or somebody in the police force higher than him, but he didn't mind it for the moment. The Joker was still out there; Bruce felt painfully aware of the necessity to assume the mantle of Batman again once he found out precisely where the villain was hiding—and before he struck again.

He left the study, wandering down a hall along a cavalcade of windows on his right. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and smirked. He passed one last window and veered through glass double doors, pushing them open onto the back terrace. It was dark, the angry orange glow of Gotham's skyline visible above the treetops that enclosed the property. Security lighting cast the lawn in a checkerboard of white and black patches, their borders less defined and more like heavy grey swaths; Bruce, however, was more focused on the shadows of the terrace. Nevertheless, he left that focus to his other senses and fixed his gaze on the shimmering swimming pool barely visible between the hedges, its water rippling lightly in the evening breeze and turned from blue to a soft orange by an underwater light.

"What're you looking at, billionaire? Admiring your domain?" A voice teased him from the shadows. He shrugged, fighting to maintain control and not glance over his shoulder at his visitor.

"Just enjoying the night air. Sometimes I think I don't get out enough."

"Yeah, you always were pretty street dumb," his visitor ribbed playfully. He could hear the smirk in her tone and laughed.

"I thought you taught me everything you knew," Bruce protested, turning around. Selina stepped out from the shadows and glided towards him, a faded old hoodie pulled over her curls, where she rested one hand on his chest while the other traced the line of his jaw. Bruce swallowed.

"Just because I taught you didn't mean you learned anything. You've always been stubborn. And an idiot." She patted his cheek condescendingly. "Like leaving this morning in such a rush."

He winced and turned away as best he could. "I was worried you wouldn't want me to get too comfortable. And I had a busy day."

Selina frowned, toying with the frayed end of the towel. After a moment's hesitation, she tugged it, turning Bruce back towards her; he barely had enough time to process the action before he was closing his eyes, reveling in a kiss just as urgent as those they'd shared the previous afternoon and evening.

She pulled away slowly, green eyes searching his face. "So, what? It wasn't convenient today so you just left? What was so 'busy' about today that you couldn't even text me. Am I an inconvenience, Bruce? 'Cause that didn't feel like I was inconveniencing you."

"No. I—ah," Bruce stopped himself, unsure. He rubbed her cheek with the pad of his thumb and attempted a disarming smile that felt more awkward than it was. "I just thought you might want to think about staying here more often."

"Is that right?" she whispered, her tongue instinctively darting out to whet her lips.

"If you wanted, I mean. And well, since you felt so strongly you had to seek me out tonight and you've already made the trip…" He shrugged.

"I think you're finally getting one of the first lessons I gave you," she retorted before pressing another kiss to his lips.

"Which one was that?" Bruce said after a pause, feeling her smirk against his lips.

"Never underestimate common sense."

* * *

It wasn't that Jim Gordon was used to his mobile phone shattering his sleep in the wee hours of the night; he was just resigned to the regularity of it now that his desk plaque read 'Captain.' Despite there being no such corresponding plaque on his bedside table, the responsibilities still carried over, much to his chagrin. He groaned, rubbing one eye with the heel of his palm as the phone continued ringing louder and louder. With a groan and a lunge, he snatched it from the bedside table and answered without checking the caller ID.

"Mmph, hello?"

"Sorry for calling so late—or is it early?—James, but I just _had_ to say hi!" The gleeful, sickening voice on the other end electrified Gordon awake and he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"What do you want, Jerome?" he snarled. Jim switched the phone to his opposite hand and wedged it between his shoulder and his ear as he opened the drawer and withdrew a small revolver. He hoisted the weapon in the cobalt-grey of the night and checked that all six rounds were loaded before whipping the cylinder back in place and spinning it.

"Tsk tsk tsk, come _on_! That clown died a long, long time ago. You were there; you should remember. The lights, the jokes, the laughs! Hehehe, and then the betrayal." The caller's voice spat the final words, anger seething through the phone only to disappear in an instant. "Allow me to introduce myself, the Clown Prince of Crime, yours truly…The Joker!"

Gordon rubbed the back of his neck. "Are you expecting a round of applause?"

"No," his caller chuckled. "No, no. I'm expecting you to barely remember this conversation. But I must applaud _you_ Jimbo, on being a sneaky devil—I didn't know you had a pet bat! I can't wait for you to arrange another play date for us! Oh, if you forget any of this, just turn on the morning news…"

"What? Why wouldn't I remember this?" Gordon asked, confused, as the line went dead. He stood, crossing the bedroom in two steps and grabbing the door knob, but he was too late. A loud hissing spilled from under his bed as a deep purple cloud of smoke emanated out and along the floorboards. Gordon tried to turn the knob, but the potent gas stole his dexterity and he felt both his revolver and the door knob slipping from his grasp unwilling; nevertheless, his last conscious sight and memory was that of the door opening inward of its own accord, his midnight caller stepping into the room as if in a dream, and wiggling his fingers in front of his drooping eyelids in a mocking bid goodnight.

* * *

Alfred ignored the twin groans of protest that accompanied his flinging open of the blinds in the master bedroom, choosing instead to purposefully pad across the massive and stunningly complex Persian handcrafted rug that covered the room. He crossed the sky blue, white, gold, and crimson pattern, stepping over the intricate threading of the maker's family name in deference to their eight years of arduous work in creating the product, and entered the marble and gold leaf-encrusted master bathroom to snatch a maroon robe with an embossed 'W' on the left breast. He set his jaw and looked away in respect as he returned to the bedroom and stood, arm outstretched with the robe, a foot away from the bed.

"If I may, for Miss Kyle."

Selina rolled over and reach out, pinning the comforter to her collarbone, to take the proffered robe with an eye roll. "Come on, Al. It couldn't have been a coffee?"

"There's a pot of black on downstairs, Miss Selina; however, to get to it you will require this as I will not have either of you prancing around this home in naught but your knickers or worse."

From the far side of the king-sized bed, Bruce pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Why the early wake up, Alfred? It can't be later than seven."

The butler clasped his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Yes, well, I thought you'd prefer to see the news now rather than later." He nodded slightly, making his exit as they stared after him, nonplussed. Alfred turned just as he was about to cross the threshold and checked his pocket watch. "And it's a quarter seven, Master Bruce, if you must know."

"What the hell could possibly be on the news that we needed to be woken up to see?" Selina griped as she tied a knot on her right hip to keep the robe snug as Bruce crossed the rug to a massive armoire. He took a solid black tee from a drawer and slipped it on with a shrug.

"I'm sure Alfred has a good reason," he justified as thoughts of the previous day's events raced through his mind. Bruce pushed the drawer shut and turned, only to find himself alone in the room—he grinned ruefully at Selina's evasion and followed her downstairs.

* * *

The television was already running its BREAKING NEWS report as Bruce stepped into the servant's kitchen to find Selina perched on the table with a mug of coffee clutched between her hands, eyes boring into the small screen on the counter as Alfred deftly wielded a spatula to remove an egg over easy from the frying pan and ease it onto a piece of toast.

Bruce stumbled slowly closer and closer to the television as Alfred moved behind him to place a plate on the table next to their guest. He was riveted on the report; the protests of Selina that he was blocking the sight line from her spot on the table and the inquiries from his butler as to his egg-cooking preferences were tuned out as his focus remained on the television.

"It can't be," he whispered, finally coming to a stop right in front of the television.

"Bruce! Hey!" Selina snapped, finally piercing the fog that surrounded his mind. She caught the slight tilt of his head in acknowledgement and let the steely edge to her voice slip away—not satisfied to let him off the hook completely, though, she replaced it with a good-natured critique. "Like, two feet to the right, so we can watch too, huh?"

Her viewing impediment removed, she hummed in appreciation and took a large bite of her egg on toast; for his part, Bruce couldn't fathom eating at all as the main morning news anchor came back on to provide a summary before their obligatory commercial break at the top of the hour and the hourly program started anew.

"Again, the breaking news this morning—following yesterday's successful police rescue of multiple hostages at a health clinic in Hell's Crucible, the terrorist being identified only as 'The Joker' has retaliated by taking Barbara Gordon, daughter of police captain James Gordon and well-renowned doctor, Leslie Thompkins, hostage at sometime early this morning. Details are especially thin at this hour, however…I apologize for the interruption, but we have a new development in this story." The anchor disappeared as an obnoxious graphic complete with sound effects blasted across the small screen announcing LIVE DEVELOPMENT.

The news anchor reappeared after a moment, her lips set in a thin line, her tone much darker than before the interruption. "Good morning. Our lead story at this hour: the kidnapping of police Captain James Gordon's daughter. A statement video has been released by the alleged kidnapper, the mysterious terrorist identifying himself only as 'The Joker.'" An inset window appeared as the video began playing without sound as the newswoman continued providing a voice over hitting the high points of the production. Bruce, Alfred, and Selina watched as the video seemed to show The Joker and two accomplices wearing the now-familiar clown masks with a bound and distraught Barbara Gordon in the back of a vehicle. A shot of The Joker standing mockingly over an unconscious Jim Gordon in the dark was spliced in as well. "The kidnapper claims to have kidnapped Barbara Gordon out from under the nose of her father. Most disturbing of all, however, are his demands: that he will take the girl's life at midnight tonight unless, and I quote, 'Jim Gordon gives up his in the same place I lost mine.' The Joker further insists that any evidence of police involvement in the search for him or Gordon's daughter will lead to far greater consequences; however, he strangely encourages the participation of 'Gordon's little bat.'"

"What is she talking about?" Selina wondered aloud to the kitchen, furrowing her brow as Bruce shrugged and, without answering, turned and raced out of the kitchen. Selina hopped off the table to follow when the television reporter began to speak once more, catching her attention and holding it more than his urgent departure.

"While we are unsure of the final reference in the disturbing video, Gotham News was able to obtain the following video directly from the Health Clinic run by Doctor Leslie Thompkins and attacked by The Joker yesterday. In it you can clearly see there is another figure, wearing some sort of mask and a cape, moving about in the Clinic during the crisis that does not appear to be part of the police force in any way. At this time, it is unclear whether or not this figure is an accomplice of The Joker or a vigilante attempting to rescue the hostages, but this _may be_ the bat mentioned in the video previously shown.

"For more, we now go to Alexander Knox, who is at the Gotham Health Clinic for High Risk Children, live. Alexander?"

As the news program switched to its live reporter, Selina chewed on her egg and toast thoughtfully and canted her head to the side. Something about the grainy video of that masked mystery figure at the clinic seemed familiar, but she couldn't quite place the connection; moreover, her thoughts were slowly being drowned out by the loud notes of classical music seeping down through the halls of the manor and into the kitchen.

"What's with the music?" she asked, hoping Alfred would answer her general question. Receiving no reply, she looked over her shoulder towards the stove—and found herself alone in the kitchen. Perplexed, Selina snatched her large mug of coffee and slowly ascended the stairs back to the foyer. She hissed at the feeling of cold marble under her feet as she made her way towards the shut double doors of the study, from which the music seemed to spill in waves of strings and brass instruments.

She tried the handles only to find them locked and her confusion and vexation at being left alone without an explanation blossomed into full curiosity. Taking a step back and looking up and down the jamb of the door, Selina felt a feral grin stretch across her features.

"There's always more than one way into a room, boys," she whispered, walking rapidly across the foyer to the magnificent staircase: snooping was hardly aided by a robe and, comfortable as Bruce's had proved to be, she needed something a bit more utilitarian.

* * *

The cypher-locked door slammed shut, yet Bruce paid it no heed as he slipped on the thin Nomex-based under layer of his suit.

"Just what the bloody hell do you think you're doing, Master Bruce?"

"Captain Gordon needs my help," the billionaire responded tersely. He tugged a sleeve down towards his wrist and slowly began putting on the Future Combat Suit, its black chest piece now crowned by a matte black, sharply rendered bat-like shape.

"I'm not disagreeing with you on that account, but rather, what precisely are you doing about _her_?" Alfred said pointedly, walking across to the bank of monitors behind his charge and pointing at the closed circuit television camera showing Selina climbing out of the window of his master bedroom. "Do you remember what I told you just before you left?"

"You told me a lot of things, Alfred." Wayne glanced over his shoulder to find the butler glaring at him. "But I know you're referring to Selina, obviously. You told me I had to choose."

"That's right. And just because you left and returned to Gotham wiser and prepared to do whatever's necessary to continue your father's fight, doesn't mean that your choice went away. In all truth, sir, by the looks of the last several days and nights, I'd reckon it's even more crucial to decide that now than later."

"I trust her, Alfred. I always have; I always will." Bruce slipped his feet into the combat boots and hoisted the utility belt out of its storage slot, double-checking each piece of equipment was where he preferred it and was fully functional.

"It's not about trust; it's about protecting her from Jerome—The Joker—whatever he's calling himself and his ilk. She's a vulnerability."

"A vulnerability," scoffed Bruce, slamming the utility belt back into its place. He stormed across the cave and jabbed a gauntleted hand at the screens showing Selina swinging down onto the balcony upon which they shared their tryst the previous evening. "She's the antithesis of vulnerable and Selina isn't a liability. She doesn't need my protection—Alfred, she taught me more than I can quantify."

"And can you quantify what she means to you?" Alfred challenged, crossing his arms. "Go on, then, if she's not a liability. If she means that much, just let her down here; won't be long til she finds her way down here on her own."

"She can't know," Bruce said through gritted teeth. "And you're going to go back upstairs and ensure she doesn't. I have some research to do on Jerome Valeska and I need to arrange a meeting with Captain Gordon."

Alfred frowned and spun, walking back towards the cave's entrance. "And will this meeting be as a concerned family friend offering the considerable resources of Wayne Enterprises, or as Gotham's well-meaning vigilante?"

"The latter, I think," said Bruce thoughtfully as he slid into the chair beneath the myriad screens. He propped an elbow on the chair arm, clenching and unclenching his fist. "And Alfred?"

The butler pulled a lever, springing open the sealed door before turning. "Yes, Master Bruce?"

"About Selina…Is it wrong to want both?" He looked up, an expression of restrained hope rippling across his face.

"Wrong to want it, I should think not. But will it prove too costly to pursue, Master Bruce; that's the real question, innit?"

A second later, the heavy door slammed shut, leaving Bruce alone with his thoughts in a cave he was still struggling to think of his own, and not of his father who'd tried to have both too.


	21. Chapter 20

**A/N:** Thank you all again so much for the awesome reviews/favs/follows and for reading this little tale and sticking with it! This is more or less a transition chapter after the scene-setting of the last one...like we're approaching the top of a roller coaster and then starting that descent. Hopefully you enjoy and if you do (or don't) please let me know what you liked (or didn't)!

I don't own 'Gotham' or 'Batman.'

 **Chapter 20**

The flurry of activity in his apartment was mind-numbing—or perhaps it was that he still wasn't completely coherent after the concentrated gassing from the previous night; either way, Captain James Gordon sat at a stool in his kitchen, swirling a glass of ice water as an army of forensics analysts and several police officers scoured his apartment for any and every piece of evidence of The Joker's visit. Barbara's room was completely taped off, as was his master bedroom. The front door was gone, removed from its hinges completely by the hostage rescue team when they kicked it in just after eight that morning. Gordon appreciated the enthusiasm to a point—it was also several hours late, which irritated him to no end. That sort of property damage was unnecessary if the target was already long gone. Later, when forensics arrived at the secured scene, they hauled the door off for processing.

A hand brushed across his shoulders, pausing to squeeze one as someone sat down on the stool next to his. Jim looked up, relieved to find his ex-wife sitting there. The horror in her eyes was far less comforting.

"Jim…are you okay?" She asked quietly.

"I'm fine, but Lee…he took Barbara! And I just let it happen."

"Stop it, Jim. You couldn't have possibly known he would be that brash."

Jim clenched his fist and pounded it on the counter. "But somebody had already been here! There had to have been signs that I missed. Somebody planted the canisters under my bed and—"

"—And now we'll get her back. You don't think I feel guilty too? I told you to take her this week on Monday. She shouldn't have even been here!" Leslie rolled her eyes and fought a valiant, but losing battle against tears. "I let her down—I'm so sorry, Jim."

The former detective downed the rest of his water and shook his head. "Both feeling sorry about it won't help find Barbara, though."

"No, it won't," agreed Leslie cautiously, an edge to her voice. Jim turned, noticing the change in tone.

"But you think you know what can?"

"Not what, Jim: who."

His eyes widened, realization dawning. The Joker's words from that night about wanting to include the 'pet bat' in their deadly game of cat-and-mouse lurked in the back of his mind. "I don't know if that's a good idea; how do you know we can trust him?"

"Because he saved my life. And we're a little beyond that at this point, don't you think?" She jerked her head in the direction of the GCPD analysts and investigators scurrying to and fro through the door-less entry. "They won't find our daughter before midnight, but he might."

Gordon nodded, resigned to the impossible situation in which the spectre of their past had placed them. He silently cursed Jerome Valeska, swore that he would find and kill him—again—since somehow the first attempt didn't seem to do the trick. But before he could fulfill that vengeful fantasy, he had to actually locate the man, and without a lead to work off of, that was going to be nigh impossible in the next…Gordon gritted his teeth as he checked his watch and noted it was fourteen hours until the deadline.

"Alright, Lee, so how do we contact him?"

The doctor smiled thinly and stood, extending a hand. "Follow me."

* * *

Gordon pushed open the emergency exit door leading to the roof of his apartment complex and led Leslie out into the rain, popping open an umbrella to keep the two of them relatively dry—the fierce crosswind relegated his efforts to marginally effective. They took two steps away from the door so it could slam shut behind them as Gordon quickly scanned the rooftop for their expected guest; the rain and large air conditioning units and exhaust ventilation shafts weaving up and down across the roof greatly impaired his ability to make a thorough search.

"I'm glad you both came," a gruff voice said from behind them. Gordon whirled, pulling the revolver from his waistband and thrusting the gun out, training it on the dark figure lurking in the shadows to the side of the emergency exit. His cape was pulled tight across his chest, the rain streaking down the sharp tips of his cowl and dripping from the wickedly curved ends of the cape.

"Jim, put the gun down," the doctor said in a calm voice from just behind his shoulder. After a moment when he was still holding his revolver out like it could ward off the demons crushing in around him, Leslie reached out and delicately pressed it down towards the gravel. Gordon blinked, regaining his senses.

"What do you want?" he called out skeptically.

"The same thing you do: Barbara returned safely and The Joker caught."

"I want him dead!" snarled the police captain.

"Vengeance solves nothing. Especially now," reprimanded the vigilante as thunder cracked to the north. "We don't have much time."

"So what do you suggest we do?" Leslie asked, yelling to be heard. She shivered and shuffled closer to Jim, her arms crossed against the chill.

"We split up. This has all been a game to him since the beginning, and this is the final test. We just have to find him."

"It's not exactly a small city," Lee pointed out. "Where do we look?"

"It's not so big if we think about who we're dealing with. Captain, you and The Joker have a history together; where in Gotham would hold specific importance to that?"

Gordon furrowed his brow, trying to focus on the distant past. "Uh, well where we thought he died, I guess."

"The old Bowery Savings Bank," the shrouded figure nodded slightly. "Galavan's penthouse?"

"I don't think so," Gordon scratched at the back of his neck. "The tycoon Rupert Thorn purchased it a couple years ago for cheap and has been living their ever since. Even Jerome—The Joker—isn't insane enough to take Barbara there." His comment about the villain's insanity clicked like tumblers aligning in Gordon's mind. "Arkham: where I sent him after he was arrested."

The masked man stared at Gordon intently. He nodded imperceptibly and flicked his eyes between them. "I'll go to Arkham. Check out the old bank building. If you don't hear from me by sundown, assume the worst."

"Wait!" Gordon shouted as their cloaked caller spun and stepped up onto the ledge of the rooftop. He crouched, turning slightly to acknowledge the police captain. Jim spoke up once more, "How will you contact me if you find anything?"

"You'll know," Batman growled, throwing himself into the abyss and disappearing from view. Gordon handed the umbrella to Leslie and ran to the edge of the roof, climbing up onto the ledge and looking down at where their visitor was gliding through the air, cape spread like large glossy wings in the rain. He dove into an alley and vanished from sight once more.

"What did you say he called himself?" Gordon said over his shoulder, staring into the lightning-filled Gotham sky.

"The Batman."

"Right…Batman, huh?" Gordon carefully hopped back onto the gravel of the rooftop and walked, soaked, back to his ex-wife. He tried to smile wryly; however, it felt closer to a pained grimace. "I'm glad he's on our side."

"Oh, you have no idea," asserted Leslie as she ushered Jim back into the stairwell and slammed shut the door.

* * *

"You're sure about this?" Alfred asked with a glance at the rearview. "You're sure you don't want me to spend my day driving you somewhere else?"

"I may need to go somewhere else if he's not here, yes," Bruce responded levelly. He looked out the rain-streaked window at the large distribution facility behind which the Rolls was parked, nearly a half mile down the road from the front gates to Arkham Asylum. "I doubt he is here, but The Joker's also shown a flair for the theatrical; he may have left a clue here. I should be back rather quickly."

Alfred watched grimly as his charge donned his mask and stepped out into the rain before running past the hood of the car and beginning to climb a ladder up to the top of the warehouse ahead of them.

Pausing to glance back down at the car as he crested the roof, Batman tossed a two-fingered salute down to the butler and started jogging across the sloped surface. To no one, he griped, "I have _got_ to get my own car."

* * *

The teal-and-cream tiled floor of the security guard's station just inside the main doors of Arkham was caked with a coat of grime so thick it turned the lighter colored tile squares brown. Outmoded screens and displays for the security sensor systems on the property were jammed floor-to-ceiling in the space, a double-layered cage wrapping around the front of it where a thin gap in screens allowed visitors to approach and state their business. One of the two swivel chairs in the guard shack spun slowly, creaking as it made its absent-minded revolution. Two screens on the front panel were shattered, their black screens unnatural voids in the midst of greenish visuals emanating from the other ones in the room.

The grimy floor behind the two chairs was further marred by streaks of red—and the unconscious and bound but injured body of the one Arkham security guard assigned to that afternoon's watch rotation. The second of the two chairs was occupied by a clown-masked thug, his baseball bat's blood-stained barrel sitting propped in the corner out of sight. He was typing rapidly when movement on a screen to his left drew his attention. He turned and watched the next display: moments later, a black shape moved past the camera in a blur before that screen disappeared, a line of static across the middle of it suggesting that the occurrence was no accident.

Another display on the other side of the room suffered a similar fate, unbeknownst to the goon sitting, still watching in rapt attention the bank of screens in front of his mask. One by one, the roof cameras went offline and then he saw, on a screen near his knee, the mysterious intruder approach and drop into the fenced-in courtyard in the middle of the compound.

The goon grinned. "Just like Boss predicted," he mumbled and began his next set of predetermined actions by slamming his palm down on the large red alarm on the main panel near his elbow. Then he spun around and stepped over the real guard and began flicking switches. "Night, night, Mr. Bat."

The knocked out guard was oblivious to the menacing chuckle the goon tacked onto the end of his rambling as throughout the high-risk wing, doors began unlocking seemingly of their own accord.

* * *

In the courtyard, Batman froze as a loud wailing of klaxons pierced the storm. Metallic grating began falling over doorways and bars slid up in front of windows as speakers in the corners of the courtyard blared the alarm. He frowned and slowly backpedaled to the middle of the courtyard as a door in the corner opened. Batman paused for a moment, but nobody entered the courtyard. Carefully, he walked towards the pillars lining the courtyard and pressed himself to one, peering around it at the empty doorway beckoning him to enter the Asylum itself. After another minute of solitude and constant alarm wailing, Batman finally swallowed and strode out from behind the pillar and into the open doorway.

His cape was barely through the portal when it swung shut automatically and a locked door in a fence at the next intersection popped open. Batman pushed the gate open fully and stepped onto a landing overlooking a long cell block below, a single wrought-iron set of steps leading up from the concrete floor below to his vantage point. One-way glass lined the wall to his right—below to his left, the line of cells stretched on for nearly fifty yards to the far side of the room. Batman cracked his knuckles and clenched his fists.

Every cell door was open and a line of massive, angry inmates were snarling up at him. The nearest one foolishly tried to rush up the stairs and attack the newcomer; Batman casually pivoted and planted a kick in the man's chest, sending him tumbling back down the stairs. As the prisoner finished his somersault onto the concrete below, two more rushed up the stairs. Batman raised his gauntleted fists and met the first one, parrying a wild punch with a blow to his gut. The man doubled over in pain and a jab kick to his knee sent the man sprawling and rolling back down to the ravenous pack below the landing. The second inmate sidestepped a punch and reared back with a shiv, intending on stabbing the Caped Crusader. Batman dodged the first off-balance lunge, grabbing the wrist and bringing his gauntlet down, shattering the man's hand. He screamed and dropped the impromptu weapon—his scream only increased as he found himself hurtling through the air into a sea of fellow inmates.

As the third of the first wave of attackers landed bodily on top of several inmates below, Batman picked a small black sphere out of a pouch on his utility belt and spiked it into the metal beneath his feet: there was a flash and black smoke filled the landing, billowing out over the cell block. The inmates coughed and shielded their eyes, stumbling towards the stairs. As the smoke dissipated, they realized the landing was empty and the gate was slammed shut once more—the first group of inmates to climb the stairs discovered a small bat-shaped shuriken wedged into the locking mechanism to prevent them from leaving the cell block.

Batman ran to the end of the hall, eyes searching for the door control panel. Finding it on the wall opposite the door, he carefully pulled off the cover and rewired the controls—behind him, the door hissed open. Whirling, he ran back into the courtyard, feeling like the last several hours were an incredible waste of time and resources wasted on a dead end.

Just as he was about to aim his grapple gun towards the roof, the speakers crackled and a tapping noise was cast across the courtyard. "Test…test…are you there, Batsy?"

He froze as the harsh voice of The Joker surrounded him. "Of course you are. I'm so glad you decided to drop in and play! Oooh it's so exciting. You, a man who dresses up like a bat—and a whole asylum filled with people who wish they could do the same! Heeheehee…but you and I know better. They'll never ascend to _our_ level, hmm? And unfortunately, I think our dear friend James is going to be ascending to a much, much higher plane in no time. So maybe I can arrange a little father-daughter reunion for them? Touching, don't you think?" There was a smacking sound and Batman could picture the crazed murderer hitting himself in the forehead. "I really must stop with these rhetorical statements! Ah, well, I think I've delayed you long enough, Bats. Welcome to the madhouse!"

There was a piercing screech across the sound system and then it went dead. Rain fell heavily on Arkham and Batman paused, turning around in a slow circle before whipping his cape and his head back around the opposite direction as dozens of clown-masked goons and massive asylum inmates that slowly stepped out from under the eaves on either side of the courtyard during the speech closed in around him. Several held crow bars and pipes; others knives and misappropriated billy clubs. Batman snatched his grapple gun off of his belt, pointing it towards the tower atop the front of Arkham—and dropped it with a shout of pain as one of the clown-masked goons threw a large rock, hitting him in the hand. Realizing his options were now severely limited, Batman fell into a fighting stance, fists up around his chin as every lesson at the hands of martial arts masters and his own butler coursed through his thoughts. He continued circling slowly—and waiting for one of his countless opponents to make the first move.

They didn't disappoint.


	22. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer:** Don't own 'Gotham.'

 **Chapter 21**

Batman grunted as he drove his elbow backwards into the gut of an inmate harassing him from just behind his left shoulder. He spun quickly, cape whipping into the air and smacking several others in the face, momentarily blinding and stunning them, as he brought his right elbow straight down into the back of the man's neck, knocking him unconscious and sending him to the ground, just one of several immobile bodies drawing shallow breaths in a compact circle around the middle of the courtyard. He wiped his gauntleted-thumb across his lip, flicked his tongue across it, and tasted the ferric taste of blood on the tip.

A night stick slammed into the side of his head, dropping him to a knee as Batman blinked away stars. He turned as he rose from a crouch to face the assailant, but before the inmate could strike again, a knife sliced through the air between them, imbedding itself in his forearm. He howled in pain and Batman grabbed the knife, twisting and wrenching it out as he maneuvered the man to the ground; along with several of his would-be attackers, his gaze leaped to the rooftop.

"Looks like you could use a hand," Selina Kyle called out, drawing another throwing knife from one of the several sheaths on her hip. She jumped off her perch, loosing a knife in midair that arced perfectly over his shoulder and landed in the eye slit of a clown-masked goon before she completed a somersault and landed in a graceful crouch right next to her first victim. She rose slowly, stretching up and casually snagging three more knives from a different sheath. Batman struggled repressing a grin as she smirked and taunted the inmates and thugs. "So, you boys going to just stare at us all day, or what?"

Two burly men were foolish enough to take her up on her taunt; within seconds they were clutching at their necks, trying fruitlessly to stop bleeding profusely from where her deadly knives struck arteries. Swallowing down his displeasure at seeing her be so cavalier with their lives, Batman fixed his attention to the group of thugs immediately in front of him, going on the offensive to expand their bubble of safety, countering jabs and hooks with elbows and the sharp edges of his gauntlets, even using one to snap the blade of a knife off before landing a punch in between the wielder's wide eyes.

Selina turned from her two simultaneous victims, lithely dodging the punches of two inmates in orange jumpsuits and a clown-masked henchman wielding brass knuckles. She danced fluidly in between the three of them, slipping out of the way at the last possible moment as a meaty fist hit the chin of a fellow inmate. Stunned, he staggered backwards before shaking his head and growling—his efforts at intimidating the woman went unheeded as she deftly dropped a switchblade from her sleeve and popped its lethal blade out of the casing while she backpedaled towards the masked vigilante landing and absorbing punches like a human tank. The clown-masked man rushed forward and she flashed a feral grin—she spun on the ball of her foot and whipped her left boot into his temple, sending him crashing to the ground.

She sensed something moving rapidly through the air from her right and dove forward, skying over a wrench tossed by someone in the crowd, and twisting so she could plant her hands and catapult into a back handspring, landing atop an inmate's shoulders. She squeezed her legs, choking him, and rode his shoulders back to the ground. Landing in a crouch, the fingers of her left hand barely grazing the cement and her right still clutching the unused switchblade, she glanced over at the caped man across the courtyard.

Batman grabbed a clown-garbed attacker by the belt and the neck and hurled him like a sack of flour into three others. He immediately brought his hands back into a guard position, refusing to allow any gap for attacks. Before Selina had a chance to blink, he landed a flurry of punches against another opponent and arced one of his strangely shaped shurikens into the forehead of another goon, dropping him. She slowly stalked towards him, flicking her gaze from side to side at the retreating horde. Groaning and broken bodies littered the courtyard around the two of them—fresh warnings to the others of the fate that awaited any ill-advised attacks. There were still three engaged with her companion, however (whoever he was), and Selina intended to assist. She palmed a throwing knife in her left hand and broke into a wind sprint. The distance between her and the flowing obsidian cape closed instantly.

"Crouch!" She shouted, knowing that the intended recipient would do just that.

Batman heard the command and dutifully dropped to a knee, using the opportunity to slam a strike just below the belt of an inmate holding a billy club; he grunted and dropped the weapon. Batman felt pressure on his shoulders and then it was gone—and the advancing man to his left and right sprouted knifes from their shoulders. He glanced forward where Selina seemed suspended in mid-air, arms outstretched at the follow-through of her identical throwing motions, and the heel of her boot lancing inevitably towards the throat of the man right in front of him. She struck him and rolled forward on the far side of his unconscious form; in a wary crouch she spun and surveyed the scene. They rose at the same time; eyes fixed on the other—begrudging respect and admiration in hers, rewarded resilience and unwavering trust in his. The courtyard stilled just for an instant and he felt as if she could see straight through the cowl—but it was fleeting.

Selina frowned at the strange moment and darted forward to start plucking knifes from her victims' bodies and wiping them off as the rest of the inmates watched from the safety offered by the pillars on either side of the courtyard. Batman located his grapple gun and looked up to find her standing a foot away, head cocked as if she was trying to riddle something out in her mind. Her eyes roamed his suit before returning to his masked features.

"You're him, aren't you?" she asked confidently, memories of a night in The Narrows a week ago plastered in technicolor on every screen in her mind's theatre.

Without giving her an answer, Batman stepped back and fired the grapple gun towards the roof, escaping the courtyard and leaving her to find her own way out, confident she could find her own way back into the city—and afraid that if he opened his mouth, she'd unravel him instantly. And if this had been a trap to lure him away from the real location of Barbara…

* * *

The Bowery Savings Bank was abandoned. Condemnation notices and posters announcing hearings on the location's future created a grim collage on the temporary plywood barrier running across the bottom of the steps up to the pillars enclosing the entrance to the historic building. Across every single one of them was drawn a macabre purple or green 'J' that taunted Captain Gordon in the early evening as floodlights and streetlights glistened overhead.

Jim flexed his fingers around the grip of his pistol and pushed open the door in the middle of the poorly constructed wall. He walked up the steps of the building, trepidation and nightmarish images of contraptions and puzzles and other horrors that could await him and his daughter inside building with each marble step. Gordon crested the final step and looked back down at the rain-sleeked street before turning around to find the main doors of what was initially a bank and more recently home to multiple highly regarded restaurants and reception halls cracked open enough for him to slip inside the building and escape the rain.

The main hall of the building was dark, the only light filtering in through the skylights high over his head was tinted grey and blue by the miserable weather hovering over the city. He tread slowly, sweeping his gun from side to side as he passed abandoned scaffolding, construction equipment, haphazardly erected shanties and lean-tos, and the burnt-out remnants of old trash cans turned space heaters. He came around a corner and frowned, stopping in surprise. At the far end of the hall, however, past a set of glass doors—one shattered completely and the other still entirely intact—the wall sconces of one of Gotham's formerly prestigious event halls burned brightly. On the remaining glass door, the frosted word of CAPITALE marked it as an echo of a night Gordon wished he could forget. Deep in the cobwebbed attic of forgotten memories, he could hear Lee whisper to him that there would be a magician. She'd been wrong then and he was sure she was wrong now.

As he stepped through the shattered remnants of the other door, he tore his eyes from the name of the rooms into which he was entering and gazed across the massive hall in confusion. "What the hell?"

The front of the room was, once more, decorated and occupied by a massive stage complete with a vanishing cage, a large multi-colored spinning wheel, and there was even a dunk tank tucked in the corner. Bunting and streamers and a poster were draped from the tops of massive marble pillars announcing a fundraiser for which there would be no patrons. The bar at the back of the room was dry; the long buffet line tables on either end of the room sat cold and empty.

Precisely in the middle of the room, however, was a single table set for one, a dusty bottle of wine resting next to a shining silver dome. Gordon lowered his pistol to the alert position, angling the barrel towards the dusty floor. Brow furrowed, he reached out with his left hand and slowly lifted the serving dome away from the table—and felt the color drain from his face.

Now revealed in the cold yellow light of the Capitale was a compact-looking layering of plastic explosives with the display of an outmoded digital alarm clock wired to the top. The numbers began blinking, counting down inexorably from THIRTEEN…TWELVE…

Jim stood, frozen (ELEVEN…TEN) as his eyes were drawn to the small white card resting in the center of a purple charger at the single seat. (NINE…EIGHT…SEVEN) The card read: ' _Joke's on you, Jim!_ ' And still the clock counted down (SIX…FIVE…) even though time seemed frozen in his mind.

 **A/N:** Thank you again to you awesome readers and hopefully you'll be okay with one more cliffhanger...


	23. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

There was the distinct sensation of being trapped in an ever-expanding vat of molasses, its thick, brown viscous texture rising from an invisible spring at his feet and entombing first his feet, then his legs, and slowly his entire body as Captain Gordon stared at the haunting red numbers on the bomb in front of him. Truly—as the small place setting label intoned—the joke was on him as there was nobody else in the abandoned building; he would be the final occupant.

. FOUR…THREE…

The nonagonal skylight in the center of the ceiling far above his head shattered and Gordon's instincts broke the spell under which he'd been immobilized—they replaced the gripping fear as he flung his arms over his head and ducked down, glass spewing out from above as a massive black shape bulleted towards the floor like an onyx spear, the speed of its descent rippling the taut cape surrounding its carapace like a diver hurtling towards the water, hands outstretched in a point ahead of it.

"Hang on," a deep voice commanded and Gordon felt two gloved hands clench around the forearm protecting the back of his neck from the dangerous shards of glass still cascading down around them.

TWO…ONE…

The air was sucked from his lungs as Gordon saw the floor receding beneath them faster than he could comprehend. He felt the sting of raindrops against his cheeks followed by a grating pain as he landed roughly against the gravel on the roof and rolled several times from the inertia generated from their escape trajectory. He groaned and opened eyes to see a charcoal-tinted curtain descending down around him as Batman smothered them and rolled them twice more across the roof and away from the decimated skylight.

A spout of flame erupted from the newly created blast path before receding as the evening downpour's full firepower began to combat it and the explosive below was overcome by the heavy rain and the induced pressure difference from Batman's rescue.

"Can you stand?" The masked vigilante growled as he stood, dropping the cape from his grasp and unclipping the bungee cord from the back of his utility belt. Jim stood shakily, dusting off his trousers and rubbing at the pock-marked scars on his cheek from the landing.

"Yeah."

"Good. My rough calculation estimates that bomb will decrease structural integrity by 30% and it'd be a pretty worthless rescue if we just fell back inside."

"You don't say," snarked Gordon, wincing. Batman aimed his grapple gun at a skyscraper up the street and beckoned for Gordon to grab on. Moments later, they were standing on the flat top of an office building housing a bank and an insurance company, Gordon still wincing and feeling a bit nauseous. "Like I told Lee, I'm glad you're on our side."

Batman narrowed his eyes. "You have no idea. Arkham was a trap also; The Joker released the inmates and I had to fight my way out."

Gordon swallowed against a dry heave at the prospect of Arkham Asylum being unleashed upon the city once more. He glanced across the skyline, glittering with lit but unpopulated office buildings in the evening darkness. "So that means Barbara is somewhere else. And we only have a few hours left."

Batman stepped closer. "Is there anywhere else he could have taken her? Somewhere that was important to Valeska before he disappeared?"

Gordon groaned and stormed across the roof angrily. "Damnit, Jerome…Joker…whatever you're calling yourself…" He trailed off and whirled back towards his companion. "What he called himself."

"The Joker," Batman said slowly. He caught a glimpse of something moving on the building across the street from the Bowery Savings Bank and felt relief flood through him. He turned his attention back to the police captain. "Did he say something else?"

"He called himself the 'Clown Prince of Crime.' And he would know all about clowns…"

"There aren't any circuses permanently in Gotham. They closed the grounds years ago," asserted Batman.

"But they're still used by somebody. Ace Chemicals has a small factory over there—it was the closest one they could build to the city. That has to be it."

The conviction in Gordon's voice was palpable. Batman clenched his jaw, thinking it over. After a moment he met Jim's gaze. "It's worth a look at the least. How quickly can you get there?"

Gordon stepped past the vigilante and gazed out towards the south where he knew the bridge leading towards the circus grounds was, doing mental calculations in his mind. He spoke as he slowly turned around, checking his watch. "As long as traffic isn't terrible, maybe fifteen minutes. Did you have a plan?" He looked up and found himself alone on the rooftop. "I guess not."

* * *

Selina felt a smirk tugging at her lips as she watch Gordon hurry towards the stairwell and make his way down to street level from across the street and several stories higher than him. She didn't bother turning around to address her guest. "That's a neat trick; where'd you learn it?"

"I learned the importance of making an entrance—and an exit—a long time ago," came the gruff response from just over her shoulder, out of sight with her hood tugged snuggly over her storm-aggravated mess of curls.

She cocked her head and opened her hip enough to see that the masked man was standing a few feet away, cape wrapped around him as the rain streaked down it to the gravel of the rooftop. Selina laid her forearm across her knee and raised an eyebrow towards him. "Is that when you started avoiding direct questions as well?"

"I didn't just wake up and put the cape on, if that's what you're suggesting." He continued to stand still, though his eyes examined her entirely as she slowly stood. There were some small rips and slashes in her jacket and pants; nevertheless, she seemed to have escaped Arkham relatively unscathed. "How did follow me?"

Selina Kyle blinked and wrapped one arm around her midsection; the other palm turned skyward as if to catch the falling raindrops. "That's it? No, 'Gee, thanks, so glad you showed up when you did?' No, 'Sorry for not sticking around to make sure you didn't, um, die?'" She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes to slits. "I'll have you know—I didn't follow you. You'd be surprised just how much information you can get from a guy who doesn't like having a knife at his throat."

"So you came here hoping to get answers? Or did you come to try and save Gordon too?"

She walked slowly towards him, the disdain dripping deliciously from her teeth. "I will _never_ stick my neck out for him again. Ever."

Lightning flashed and suddenly Selina found herself inches away from the gloved tip of Batman's finger, his arm having burst from under his cape as she blinked. He leaned forward. "No personal vendetta of yours should matter more than the life of his daughter. The Joker's taken her to Ace Chemicals." He pushed past her, striding towards the roof ledge as thunder clapped directly overhead.

"Well, good luck, then," she said bitterly, watching Batman plant his hand on the ledge of the roof and step up above her.

He stood solemnly, pausing, before ducking his cowled head to address her one last time. "I expected more from you. Our being at The Flea that night…and again at Arkham today—these things weren't chance. I can't explain it, but I don't want it to change. Ever."

Batman unfurled the full expanse of his cape as another dazzling blast of lightning ripped the Gotham sky and when the rooftop was dark once more, Selina found herself staring into space, seeing not a condemned building with curls of smoke and steam through the rain, but a circular window glowing with sunlight and a scrawled message that now reverberated in her head like the tolling of a carillon.

* * *

Leslie clenched the steering wheel tighter as the red light extended several seconds longer than she preferred to wait as she tried to cut across town from the police precinct to the old Bowery Savings Bank building—reports from some residents in the area surrounding the forgotten icon of a muffled explosion jolted her from the police crisis command center downtown and sent her on a careening car ride to where she knew Jim was supposed to be looking for their daughter.

The light turned green and she planted her right foot into the floorboard. The rear tires spun on the wet pavement and she inhaled as they finally found purchase and she shot across the intersection. She spun the wheel much harder than was her custom and sent the car sliding recklessly around a corner and down another street, whispering the mantra, "They're fine…They're fine…" under her breath every five seconds or so. She barely saw the massive sedan hurtling towards her with its lights off until the last moment and swerved out of the way with a gasp.

Her mobile phone began vibrating angrily in a cup holder, its small blue light illuminating the dark cabin of the car. Trying to keep her focus on the road, Dr. Thompkins spared a small glance down as her thumb blindly searched for the button to accept the call.

"Hello?" she shouted, a panicked edge to her voice that sounded entirely foreign yet somehow apropos given the circumstances. She was accelerating again after her near-miss

"Lee, you need to turn around right now."

"Alfred?" She frowned and slowed down ever so slightly as a light ahead turned yellow.

"You bloody well almost just hit me for starters, and Jim's long gone as it is…what's that? Oh, right…our mutual friend suggests you get over to your clinic and unlock it so he can bring you Jim and Barbara."

Leslie slammed on the brakes, looking into her rearview mirror and then down at the phone as if she could still see the car from her earlier evasion. "What's happened to Jim?"

"Nothing yet," the butler reassured from the other end of the line. "But I think we'd best be ready for anything, yeah?"

"True—this is Jim we're talking about here," she said dryly, making a right turn and heading back across the city. "And tell Bruce to watch out for himself as well." Leslie received no response and let the blue light of the phone fade away as she ran two red lights in quick succession and backtracked towards Hell's Crucible. The digital clock on the silent radio impartially siphoned away the minutes as she drove; the wipers whipped back and forth across the windshield rhythmically. "They're fine…they're fine…"

 **A/N** : Well, it only took 14 chapters to find out what message he left behind...too quick of a reveal? Also, huge thanks to **Amoenus** for a great review and discussion on one of the most nuanced and pivotal relationships in the story. And to **guest** , yes this story takes all of Season 1 as canon, so any eye-clawing and out-of-window shoving by Selina happened. Hope that answers your question and you enjoyed the update!


	24. Chapter 23

**A/N:** Well, I had planned on this being a couple chapters, and then I realized as I was writing it that it worked better as one complete finale. So, uh, here...we...go!

 **Chapter 23**

A veritable armada of police cruisers descended upon the Ace Chemicals plant just over the river, outside of Gotham City proper, their blue and red lights once more—for one final time—lending a faux festive aura to the whole ordeal missing since the site was abandoned by the traveling circus that once called it home. They arrived at the main gate of the chemical plant, tires screeching, sirens wailing discordantly, and effectively blocked any entrance or exit from the complex. In the distance, the tell-tale _whomp-whomp-whomp_ of a helicopter thrummed in the night sky between claps of thunder, between a steady curtain of rain drops intoning their staccato rhythms on the roof of each cruiser and on the sky-piercing spires and tubing of the plant. Undeterred by the weather, several small exhaust pipes expelled small fires into the air.

James Gordon saw and heard none of the activity from where he was crouched behind the controls of some massive industrial equipment line, his service pistol clenched in one hand while he depressed the magazine release with his thumb, flicked his wrist sending the useless piece of metal skittering across the grated catwalk, and snatching a full magazine from the small pouch on his hip with a free hand. He slammed it into the empty magazine well of the pistol, ensuring with the heel of his hand it was seated properly, then canted the pistol and sent the slide forward, chambering a round. Rain fell continually, mixing with the constant whirring, clanging, and churning of the chemical plant to wash out any sound from afar of reinforcements.

A bullet smashed into the console to his right and he ducked away from it as several more followed. Gordon clenched his jaw—remaining still was an exercise in futility if they continued to pour indiscriminate fire towards him. It was only three of them; three brutes without enough sense to wear clown masks to hide their identity or the strategic acumen to outflank him. Unfortunately, all of them were armed and his unlucky appearance around a corner just as they were headed snubbing out the soggy remnants of a smoke meant he was now trapped. The only way deeper into the chemical plant was blocked by their position and they had a clear line of fire to the door through which he'd emerged not more than three minutes ago. Gordon glanced farther down the catwalk to his left and saw there was a ladder descending downwards—at the least, there was a gap in the catwalk large enough to support the theory there was a ladder plunging farther below—and beyond that, nothing. The gangway was a dead end above a swirling tub of ooze and steam.

The ladder would have to do for now.

Gordon twisted in place, keeping his body behind cover, and popped up long enough to squeeze off two shots in their general direction. Fifteen left. He paused; fired a second controlled pair when one of the thugs made the mistake of stepping completely out from behind a corner wall to engage him. The first one hit the brute's shoulder, sending the return fire screaming into the air well above his head, and the second one hit right in the center of the chest. Two to go. Not waiting for one of the other thugs to engage as well, Gordon ran in a crouch to the opening in the catwalk and hastily scrambled down the ladder.

He carefully dropped down to the maintenance gangway below, remaining crouched as he shuffled along beneath his previous position. The walkway above hardly slowed the onslaught of precipitation. Jim flexed his fingers around the textured pistol grip and wedged himself into the shadows at the end of the maintenance gangway. The two surviving brutes above slowly lumbered forward, confused by the sudden lack of return fire.

"Did we get him?" one asked slowly. His partner grunted in confusion as the rounded the corner directly above Gordon and unleashed a hail of bullets down the gangway. They hissed through the steam at the end, whistling harmlessly into the bowels of the factory. Ponderously, they moved towards the ladder opening.

The second one paused, stooping down. Gordon steadied his breathing; both men were at the perfect angle, the grating providing just enough space for him to line up the sights. "Hey, what's this?" He picked up Gordon's spent magazine, turning it back and forth.

"So where'd he go?"

"Here." Gordon uttered, firing a controlled pair upwards into each thug as they tried to spin around and found themselves stuck between their own girth and the narrow catwalk. Their bodies spasmed; however, only one fell to the deck, blood dripping down to the maintenance walkway below less like a leaky faucet and more a steady rivulet of red paint. Gordon added a third pair to the second brute before he too joined his partners.

 _Nine bullets left_ , Gordon inventoried silently. He grimaced as he unsuccessfully evaded blood dripping down onto his shoulder as he returned to the ladder and scaled its rungs. A rusted one snapped under his weight and he dropped his service pistol to grab desperately to a sturdier-looking part of the ladder. He watched it smack the maintenance gangway below and disappear into the night. Gordon cursed, emerging and hopping over both bodies. He advanced further past the walkway, crouching over his first victim and checking the state of ammunition in his Eastern European-imported assault rifle. Gordon set his jaw, refusing to show any joy at finding it full. He popped the magazine back into the rifle and cracked open a door before raising the larger weapon to his shoulder and making his way deeper into the plant.

* * *

As Gordon blazed a trail through The Joker's thugs, Batman took an alternate route into the chemical plant, gliding in from the top of the bridge across the river until he was close enough to fire the hook of his grapple gun around an upper-level escape deck railing, swinging in a low, silent arc before alighting on a different landing in a crouch, cape swirling around him as he stood with one arm extended allowing the cable from the utilitarian device to coil in upon itself. He sheathed it on his utility belt and gazed out past the flickering flames and effusive industrial lighting dancing in the rain all around. The blockade of GCPD on the access roads surrounding the plant seemed entirely futile given the short amount of time remaining before midnight and the sheer scope of the plant.

He gazed out across the roof, noting the locations of three guards in various states of alertness: one on a platform nearly even with his own about seventy-five yards away and facing the far end of the compound, his rifle slung lazily over a shoulder as he slumped against the wet railing and added a large accumulation of spit to the falling rain; a second nearly twenty-five feet below his feet, an assault rifle cradled in his arms as he stood imposingly in front of a doorway leading into the plant, rain sliding easily down the clown mask obscuring his features; the final rooftop guard standing stoically with his eye pressed to the scope of a sniper rifle aimed at the main gate.

Batman lightly shook the railing around the landing and climbed onto it, shuffling carefully as he stared intently between the glossy black of his boots. He withdrew a cable from a pouch on his belt, double-checked the length, and tugged it taut around the railing before leaning forward just enough for his center of gravity to shift beyond the railing and then he was rocketing directly downward towards the guard blocking the door…

The masked guard cocked his head, noting a strange shift in the air around him, but looked up far too late. He gaped behind the hideous off-white of his mask as a massive black shape enveloped his and he felt himself being carried skyward. There was a feeling of sudden pressure squeezing his neck—and then darkness. Batman dropped his limp form even as he continued to rise back to his vantage point, the body hitting the roof mutely amidst a clap of thunder.

Wiping a glove across his mouth, the caped vigilante stared intently directly across the void towards the other topmost landing where the laziest guard in the cohort was finally standing up and turning to pace his position…

The guard scuffed his boot, staring down at them agitatedly as lightning flashed and police sirens drew closer outside the chemical plant, just like Boss said they would. But they weren't his concern, were they? He was just there to provide cover for his buddy with the sniper rifle over there…the grated landing shook lightly as if something solid landed on it and he frowned. Lightning ripped through the night sky again and he could clearly see the third member of their group lying in an unconscious heap near the door into the plant and fear seared his veins like a new drug. Too late, he realized his rifle was still resting against the railing on the opposite side of the landing. He spun—and froze. Only three feet away was that guy the Boss called 'The Bat,' and he had the rifle in his gauntlets.

"Looking for this?" growled the intruder before smashing it into its owner's chin and sending him crumpling against the railing.

Batman quickly disassembled the rifle and scattered the pieces all over the landing and roof, tossing pieces to the wind. He watched how they fluttered and gusted in the storm and dropped a batarang from his belt. Clenching it in his teeth, he swung his body onto the top of the railing and stared intently down at the sniper. He twisted, aiming at a seemingly random point in the middle of the rooftop before letting the batarang fly. Batman silently counted to two and hurled himself into the air one last time…

The sniper frowned. One moment the chassis of a police cruiser, its driver crouched futilely behind the driver's side door with a pistol aimed at the gate, was unmistakable in his scope; now all he saw was black. He drew back and gagged. A chiseled—what the hell was it? Some sort of throwing star or boomerang or other device was jutting grotesquely from the scope of his rifle, rendering it useless. Nevertheless, the worst part was the shape of it: the half he could still see looked like the sharp shape of a bat.

There was a splash just behind him and he dove out of the way, rolling on the roof as he withdrew a large knife from his combat boot, spinning it dangerously in one hand. The Bat was standing where he'd previously been stooped behind the rifle, turning slowly and falling into a perfect fighting stance, cape fluttering in the storm. The sniper wiped rain away and as he blinked, his opponent closed the distance. He jabbed and swung the knife desperately, but each attack was easily blocked. The sniper took a step backwards and tripped over a small pipe, the knife clutched uselessly in his right hand as he put his left wrist out to catch his fall.

There was a sickening crunch as it snapped under his weight and the goon howled, dropping the knife to cradle his broken wrist. Batman jumped onto his torso, pinning him to the roof and ripping the headset from the man's ear. He stomped it into bits of plastic and electrical components before retrieving the knife and examining it carefully.

"Nice knife," he thanked the guard—and received a whimper in response. Batman turned his back on the man and scaled the uneven surfaces up to the door, slipping inside before the sniper could process the fluid movements. He left the knife jammed into the jamb of the door behind him.

* * *

Jim Gordon ran his hand along a green spray-painted arrow and rounded the corner, his appropriated assault rifle still jammed deep into his shoulder, its safety off. A door with no windows awaited him at the end of this hall, which looked just the same as the last dozen or so he'd opened with the utmost care only to find nothing but spray-painted directions and taunts on the floors and walls. Refusing to break his modus operandi, the police captain eased the door open, using its frame and the sturdiness of the metal door itself to protect his flank as he cleared what part of the next room he could discern from the hall before exploding through it along the wall and sweeping his rifle in a large pie-encompassing arc all the way to the opposite corner and back.

It was on his slower scan back towards the middle of the room that his breath hitched and his palms grew sweaty. He was in a much larger room, the ceiling cloaked in darkness high above as pipes and drains and distillery equipment towered above the wide work area and the bubbling, roiling vats of chemicals separated by only a waist-high railing from the smooth silver metal of the plant floor. Gordon's focus, however, was not on the hissing pipes or the churning lime green concoction simmering in its collection tank: his widened eyes could only focus on the sliver of gangway stretching across the tops of the vats, where a clown-masked thug stood forebodingly at a gap in the gangway's railing with his hands on someone's shoulders.

At the open edge, inches from plummeting down into the chemicals, hands and ankles bound together with coarse rope, a blindfold pulled taught across her eyes, and her diminutive form completely dwarfed by the size of her potential executioner, was Barbara.

Gordon lowered his rifle as he stepped past a forest of distilling tubes, making eye contact with his daughter as she shook with fear, unable to make a sound. "Barbara!"

"Dad?"

"You don't move, alright? He's not going to do anything to you, honey." Gordon glanced down at his watch, noting he had about fifteen minutes before becoming the worst liar in Gotham City's history.

"Plenty of time," he whispered confidently, just as movement in his peripherals caught his attention and he pivoted right into a baseball bat as it smashed into his nose.

Gordon spun and smashed into the floor, the chemical plant fracturing into dozens of multi-colored kaleidoscope pieces as the world swam and a hideous visage filled all of them.

"He clears the bases with a gapper! Three runs come in to blow this game WIDE OPEN!" The Joker crowed with a howl of laughter and the police captain's eyes rolled back and he lost consciousness.

* * *

Batman eased open the emergency escape high above the plant's main room, hopping down onto a railing-less catwalk not more than a foot wide that circuited the room, weaving in and out of a dizzying maze of distilling tubes, exhaust vents, and redirection valves. Industrial sounds assaulted his ears in a cacophony of hisses, clangs, and whooshes. He crouched, padding carefully along the catwalk, ducking under the protruding wheels of hand-operated control valves, and crawling under tubes that turned without warning and threatened to decapitate him if he wasn't completely focused on the dense network in front of his cowl.

The catwalk emerged over an open area several stories below—a figure stood, no larger than the first two knuckles on his index finger, on a walkway above a vat of chemicals. Moreover, it was clear that something absolutely massive was spray-painted across the metal floor of the plant in fuchsia, green, and sherbet orange. Scrawled in all capital letters with an unnecessary exclamation point at the end was the message:

TOO LATE BATS!

He snatched a small set of binoculars from his belt and dialed in the focus on each eye, immediately zooming in on the unnecessary punctuation as it didn't seem to be painted, but rather arranged using a horrifying prop. Batman swallowed hard, his eyes settling on the broken, bruised face of Jim Gordon staring into the cavernous heights of the chemical plant, arms crossed, palms flat on each shoulder. The circle immediately underneath his feet was smeared in blood.

A half second later, Batman was hurtling through the air, snapping his arms wide to open the cape and slow his descent as he spiraled into an easy crouch next to his partner-of-late. He extended two fingers down to Gordon's neck, placing them along his carotid artery and waiting…one moment, then a second, and then just before all hope was gone, Batman felt it: the faintest of pulses.

He exhaled—and whirled, contorting his body over Gordon's with one hand planted on the floor and the other rising into the air to catch a wooden baseball bat smeared with blood as it looped through the space previously occupied by his skull and found unexpected resistance in the palm of his gauntlet.

Rage pounding in his ears, Batman rose ominously, jaw set, baseball bat still firmly in his grasp as The Joker gaped, momentarily stunned at the reversal of fortune, his eyes following his nemesis as he rose to his full height, fingers squeezing furiously around the head of the maple weapon. Batman pressed his advantage, bringing his right hand up to grab the head of the bat, pressing the length of it towards The Joker's neck and spinning so that the murderer was pinned between the railing above a vat of chemicals and the bat.

"I _knew_ I should have just shot you," he gasped regrettably, dropping one hand from the grip of the bat as he replaced against the sweet spot just in between Batman's two gloves in a futile effort to gain some leverage. "Fool 'em twice, shame on me."

"Where's Barbara?" Batman snarled.

"You…you really have to ask?" The Joker's eyes flicked to his right, Batman's left conspiratorially amidst a broken chuckle. Batman glanced up, finally realizing that the single figure above the vat he'd spied from high above was actually _two_ people including the young girl.

Pain seared through his nervous system and he staggered backwards away from The Joker, small jolts of electricity coursing through his body in pulses and scrambling any semblance of coherent thought. Doubled over, he looked up at the face-painted fiend grinning at him, baseball bat in one hand and the other waving a small palm-mounted buzzer. As Batman stood, however, The Joker grabbed the bat with both hands once more, swinging it violently into his quarry's mid-section. Batman grunted, leaning forward as if the wind were knocked out of him—only to pivot and spin, bringing his elbow up into a ghostly white chin. The Joker's face snapped backwards and he released the baseball bat, ducking under it as Batman tried to swing the grip around in a reversal of momentum, and running for the forest of chemical storage vats.

The Joker slipped between two stainless steel vats and disappeared; Batman lunged to follow—and skidded to a halt as four clown-masked goons with various melee weapons emerged from the steam, encircling him and impeding his progress. He snorted in agitation and immediately closed the distance with the first one on his left, diving into his shoulder and head, pressing him down into the metal flooring, using the thug's unconscious body to support a hand spring. Batman landed in a crouch, arm sweeping away his cape as he sprung back into the fray against his second opponent, blocking several swipes of a knife before breaking the goon's wrist, taking the knife from his limp hand, and stabbing it into the space between his clavicle and shoulder. The man roared in pain and fell to the ground

Rising against the final two battle royale contestants like a Roman gladiator confident of his victory, Batman cracked his neck and flexed his fingers. They attacked simultaneously—and Batman dropped to a knee rolled fluidly between them, and rose with a roundhouse kick, jab combination that left both of them on the floor next to their fellow would-be assailants. Without sparing a glance back at Barbara, he flung himself in between the chemical vats after The Joker.

He raced between the steel storage containers marked with various warning about their corrosive or explosive contents, the echoing laughter ahead guiding him as he zig-zagged and hopped over low-lying pipes. Batman caught a flash of purple to his right and dodged to the next row of storage vats, but his prey was gone. A low, menacing chuckle wafted back towards him from behind the final vat up ahead and Batman stalked forward towards the sound. Rounding the corner, Batman came face-to-face with his nemesis—and a hissing sound the source of which he could not determine immediately, but sliced through the rest of the clamor in the plant ominously.

"Looks like I've got nowhere to run, Batty," he said dejectedly. The Joker's head was bowed slightly as he looked up past his brow at the vigilante, one hand trapping a small radio against his thigh and the other holding on to the wheel of a manually-operated valve as he gasped for air. "You trapped me."

Batman narrowed his eyes, focusing them on the cornered man, even as he strained to hear the origin of the violent hissing sound. _It's too easy_ , his mind told him. The Joker licked his lips and Batman caught just the hint of a glance away from his shrouded visage towards a pipe that ran along the wall high into the plant above—and he saw it: the pinhole-sized void poked into the steam pipe; if he took more than a step forward into the corner, the highly pressurized vapor would slice right through him if he tried to apprehend his foe. Batman glanced around the corner of the plant, trying to suss out the end-game. Several drops of cold water fell on his arm and trickled down to his fist as he clenched it and unclenched it.

"You're not the martyr type, are you?"

The Joker closed his eyes and looked skyward, as if thanking some higher power; he licked his lips again and wagged a finger at Batman. "See? This is why you _have_ to put your people in touch with my people. We MUST get together more often. You just…get me, so much better than he does. Now, don't get me wrong, James was _so much FUN_. But you! Never in my wildest…"

"It's midnight, Boss," crackled the radio in his hand, interrupting his anecdote.

"DID I TELL YOU TO CALL ME, GIGGLES!?" The Joker cleared his throat, brought the radio to his breast and whispered conspiratorially, "Do you have this much of an issue with the help, too?"

"I work alone," Batman growled, realizing that The Joker had been stalling. He didn't care where Batman was as long as—"You just wanted me away from Barbara."

"Ding ding ding! We've got a winner, Johnny! Hooo hooo hehehehe. So good, mmmmph!" He smacked his lips, as if tasting a delicious lasagna, palming the radio with fingers pinched together miming a kiss of satisfaction as he hung onto the hand wheel. The Joker clicked on the radio, "But if you must…in she goes. Ha ha ha ha!"

As he laughed, The Joker spun the hand wheel—and Batman whirled to take off back towards the center of the room.

The steam pipe rupture exploded as the valve above was completely shut and all the steam traveling upwards was shunted out the small hole directly into the side of the storage vat. Batman was a step too slow. The vat casing melted, its corrosive label disappearing as green acid and smoke shot out of it, splattering against the vat opposite—and splashing over Batman as he stumbled back through the vats, tripping over himself and tugging off his cape as the acid burned holes through the fabric. A faint tingling and burning on his neck led to his snatching the cowl from his head next—just in time to hear a shrill, young scream of terror reverberate through the large space.

"BARBARA!" He shouted and pushed himself up from his knee, running wildly away from the spreading acid with her screams and that horrible laugh bouncing off one another in his head. "Make it…make it…please make it."

Bruce emerged from storage vat labyrinth and skidded to a halt, gasping in relief: Standing, shaking and clearly hysterical, but still blindfolded next to her father's unconscious and still form, was young Barbara Gordon. There was no sign of her massive captor on either the catwalk or the plant floor—but a series of fading ripples in the chemical pool into which Barbara was meant to meet her premature end and the knife he'd confiscated from the sniper on the roof, speared into a gap in the floor next to Gordon's body and red with blood, hinted at his fate. The Batsuit-clad billionaire stumbled over to the pair, crouching in front of the young girl and lightly placing a hand on her shaking shoulder. She screamed anew.

"Shhh shhh shhh, Barbara, it's alright. You're alright," he said in a rough voice. He coughed on the toxic fumes slowly seeping from the leak in the corner. "Barbara, you and your dad are both okay."

"Where'd she go?" the girl whispered. She coughed herself and Bruce knew they didn't have long. He glanced over his shoulder at the storage vats and the red diamond flammability stickers stared back angrily. Making up his mind, Bruce smiled reassuringly at the blindfolded girl and slipped past her.

In a fluid set of motions, he brought Gordon's knees up, pulled an arm down, and hoisted the police captain from completely prone onto his shoulders with one arm looped behind Gordon's knee in a perfect fireman's carry. Bruce clasped Gordon's right arm with his own left hand, freeing his right hand to take Barbara's.

"Barbara, we have to run. Trust me!"

"Okay…but." She coughed. "Are you a friend of Daddy's?"

"I'm Batman," Bruce growled as if that would suffice.

The girl nodded shakily. "The one who saved Mom." It wasn't a question so much as a resolution.

"That's right."

"Where are we going?"

Batman looked up towards the ceiling and then towards the door through which Gordon entered earlier. "Out."

They took off at a slow trot as he guided the girl and carried Gordon to the door. He released the girl's hand and pulled the door open. "Run ten steps forward and stop, okay?"

Barbara nodded and took off, counting under her breath as Bruce slipped through the door behind her and pulled it shut, spinning with Jim still draped over his shoulders. He wiped a gauntleted hand across his damp brow and engaged the well-worm security locks on the door, hoping to seal the leak. A large red alarm next to the portal drew his attention and—just for good measure—Bruce smacked it with his elbow.

Klaxons and sirens pierced the recycled air of the plant as emergency lighting kicked on in addition to the dim lights still in working order. Bruce turned around to locate Barbara—and froze as a figure stole out into the hall from an office lining the passage; the shadow froze, its arms filled with priceless artifacts, jewelry, and other loot from the first wave of attacks so many weeks earlier. A backpack bursting with cash and more jewels was slung over its shoulder. The shadow jerked its head towards the trio, sensing it was not alone in the passageway.

Bruce made eye contact with the shadow's green, nearly feline irises, despite the sparse lighting—and swore he detected smugness that bordered on taunting that belied the slight nod of approval. He returned the gesture in gratitude just as an explosion shook the chemical plant. He staggered forward and looked back at the room from which they'd just emerged.

When he glanced back down the passage, Selina was gone.

Taking the hand of the sobbing Barbara, Bruce cleared his head and refocused on making sure they disappeared from the site too.

* * *

Doctor Leslie Thompkins hated sitting idly. Pacing the courtyard was out of the question due to the weather and sitting on the front steps of her clinic after midnight in Hell's Crucible was tantamount to suicide. She wrung her hands sitting at her desk; tried to busy herself quadruple-checking that the medicine cabinets in the exam rooms were completely stocked; skimmed through the medical psychology books on kidnap victims for a second time; started dialing Alfred's mobile number for an eighth time before hanging up the phone on the last digit.

The light in the upstairs office leading to the covered balcony flicked on as she was replacing the phone back in its cradle—its light spilling across the dark courtyard and barely through the window of her office, but in her paranoid state it was enough. Leslie dashed from behind her desk, out of her office, and up the stairs. She pounded down the upstairs hall, white coat rustling around her as she slammed through the door into the office.

Her eyes followed a trail of cut bonds, discarded blindfold, and abandoned, soaked sneakers to find her daughter kneeling next to a sofa where Jim lay breathing shallowly, but otherwise unconscious. "Barbara!"

The girl whirled, tear-flooded eyes running over as she smiled desperately. "He saved us, Mom! The Batman!"

Leslie's gaze wandered back to the cracked open double-doors to the balcony. She quickly checked Jim's airway, circulation, and for any signs of bleeding before kissing her daughter on the head and squeezing her tight. "Look after Daddy for one minute more, okay?"

"Okay."

The doctor stood, hands shaking, as she made her way to the door, crossing her arms against the midnight chill made impossibly colder by the continuing rain. Lightning crashed across the Gotham sky and she saw him silhouetted near a pillar, head bowed but uncowled.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"There's no need for that," he answered, pointing the grapple gun towards the roof of the clinic.

Thompkins pulled the door closed and stepped closer. "How long will you do this, Bruce?"

He brought his head up and she recoiled at the vehement resolve in his expression. "As long as it takes." Thunder rolled like a wave across them and the wind changed just for a moment, blowing rain in her eyes. Leslie turned away, and when she brought her eyes back up, shielded by a hand, he was gone.


	25. Epilogue

**A/N:** One last disclaimer...I don't own 'Gotham' or 'Batman.'

 **Epilogue**

He knew on some level that time passed since his confrontation with The Joker in the Ace Chemical factory, but precisely how much Bruce was not sure as he slouched in the chair at his father's desk, a finger trailing aimlessly along the cover of a collection of essays and studies on Jungian archetypes inside which he'd hid himself since that night—the last of which he finished moments earlier. Bruce swiveled the chair and gazed out the closed window into the garden, worrying his lip.

"You haven't moved for close to four hours, Master Bruce," Alfred called as he stood sentinel inside the double-door entry to the study.

Bruce shook his head and turned back to face the butler. "What does this make me, Alfred?"

"Late for lunch; I thought I'd prepare something—"

"Not the reading, Alfred."

The butler bowed his head in acknowledgement and crossed the study slowly, collecting his thoughts. "You've spent the better part of a week berating yourself for what happened, Master Bruce, and quite frankly, I haven't the foggiest why."

The younger man's face grew stormy, sharply in contrast to the rare day of golden sunshine outside the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the grounds. "I failed, Alfred. The Joker escaped; I've read the daily reports from the GCPD search teams. The only bodies they found at the site after we sealed off the leak were the hired muscle. He's gone. I couldn't stop him."

"Rubbish."

Bruce stood, his eyes steeling into a challenge. "Explain yourself, Alfred." He stalked over to the window and crossed his arms, partially turning his back to the butler.

"You're angry that in your first attempt to impress your system of justice upon the worst Gotham City can muster the object of your machinations eluded your grasp despite the fact that you were able to save Captain Gordon and his daughter from the horrible fate most assuredly waiting for them if the Batman had not intervened. You've lost sight of precisely why you decided to take matters into your own hands in the first place!"

Bruce shook his head. "Then why did I?"

"To do what each generation of the Wayne family strives to do, Master Bruce: leave Gotham City a better place than they found it. Sure, you could have used the Wayne Foundation to make incremental changes, but just as your father did, you realized something more was needed. It was why he fought to rid his own company of so much corruption and evil to provide a solid foundation for the city's economy and now you've taken the mantle upon yourself to exceed that, to treat the problems in the darkest corners instead of just using money to treat the symptoms.

"Now, don't think that just because you up and left for nearly a decade, Master Bruce, that I've forgotten how much finding closure consumed you before you left…"

* * *

" _Those years were some of the darkest this city has seen—and this Joker fellow may well have been some shadow product of those times._ "

His eyes felt heavy. Like he'd been on a week-long bender, except without the nausea or the fleeting sense of pride at having survived. Harvey tried to swallow, finding his mouth unbearably dry.

" _But the failures and sins of our youth do not define our present, nor do they dictate our future."_

His shaking hand clenched around the small plunger and he feebly depressed the call button for the nurse.

 _"If I may, I'd like to offer an alternative to you. What if Captain Gordon accepted your petition to join his Strike Force? Signed you up, gave you a badge, and said, 'Get on out there, mate?' And what if the two of you and that team were able to catch The Joker together under the law, and the system ran its course."_

Two young women in green scrubs burst through the door, a flurry of activity around him as he tried to speak to no avail. Bullock closed his eyes, missing the arrival of a third person in the room.

" _Perhaps a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death; perhaps—and they wouldn't be wrong—they found him to be positively mental and they sent him to Arkham."_

James Gordon tried to approach the bed, but found his path blocked by a doctor who ushered him back out into the corridor, where he stood, relieved, at the glass window watching as vital signs were taken and his old partner's return from his coma was properly documented and logged.

" _If, one, five, ten years later, some knob head lawyer comes along and appeals the case or convinces someone he's been reformed and sane, and he were to be released…does that mean you failed?_ _You caught him, Master Bruce—and he'd be free once more._ _How is that any different than what you were able to accomplish on your own, in your own way? He may show his face again in Gotham, I'll grant you that, but not without a moment's hesitation, now will he?"_

Gordon smiled grimly and quickly punched Leslie's number into his mobile phone, intending to pass her the good news—but he lowered the phone as, faint enough to have been his imagination, a small but goosebump-raising laugh of mockery floated past him down the corridor.

He whirled around, Lee's voice answering desperately into the void between the phone and his ear, only to find himself alone…

" _Because he knows that the Batman will be there to oppose him."_

* * *

Alfred placed a resolute hand on his charge's shoulder. "The Batman doesn't get elected or do his job for twenty years and receive a bloody pension and go fish somewhere; he'll always be there no matter what. What you're striving to do is far more than even the most upright public citizen can achieve."

"And what's that, Alfred?"

"Inspire an entire city to be better, Master Bruce. That doesn't necessarily mean good, but better."

* * *

Construction crews worked tediously, welding and banging away at the metal framing of the building's iconic gated archway as others scampered up ladders to replace the bars outside thick windows, the building's eerie Gothic architecture slowly but surely being rebuild after the riots earlier that week.

" _Some will see it as a reason to hold onto the law even more rigorously than they already do; others will see it as a reason to teach young children the importance of staying in school so they either avoid becoming your target—or they don't get the foolish idea to emulate you."_

Inside the building, Lyle Bolton crossed his massive arms, staring intently through the one-way glass at the secure wing of Arkham Asylum, the diminutive warden of the psychiatric facility standing next to him, eyes tentatively hopeful. Bolton turned his attention from the disaster-zone beyond the glass to his host, and extended a hand.

"When do I start?"

* * *

" _Yet others will take it as a call to action that even a common citizen can find their niche in such a rotten city and start to turn the tide."_

Selina's head snapped back and forth as she tip-toed across the creaking, floorboard-missing living room of the ancient mansion. The ceiling sent crumbles down like snowflakes as she hopped over a particularly wide gap and landed harder than she intended. She crept into the darkened kitchen, the only light coming from a pair of candles placed in the center of the grimy tile of the island. Large shutters covered the windows and cobwebs decorated the corners of the doorways and the undersides of shelves.

" _Politicians inherently have half a city that distrusts them, gangsters think they command respect, but in actuality they rule through fear."_

She wound around the island to a set of swinging doors, her back to the candlelight as a figure appeared from a back staircase, tall and lithe, once-silky black hair now messily secured in a bun.

"Not another step, kitty," a voice purred, its threatening edge blunted by Selina's lack of concern. An exhausted, once confidently beautiful face peered out at the young woman. "What do you want?"

"A new wardrobe, Tabby." She smirked over her shoulder as the disgraced former assassin-turned-socialite-turned-gangster-turned-fugitive sat down at the table and arched an eyebrow. "Less denim, more leather." Selina pushed open the doors, admiring the pantry filled with various stabbing implements and one large weapon, coiled in upon itself on a high shelf. "Among other things..."

* * *

 _"And try as some might, there's some who view organizations and implements of law and order just as they do the politicians and gangsters: corrupt, ineffective, and dangerous, no matter the caliber of those that lead them."_

The doorbell went just as Jim Gordon was picking up a large box labeled hastily with 'DISHES.' He gently placed the box back on the counter—and dodged out of the way as his daughter serpentine around the slalom course of other boxes littering the living area of his apartment to get to the door first.

She tugged open the door and frowned at the delivery man standing there in his brown jumpsuit, an electronic touch pad in his hand and a medium-sized freight box on a dolly to his right.

"I'm looking for a Ms. Barbara Gordon?"

"That's me!" she beamed up at him, eliciting a smile from the delivery man.

"Well, then this is for you." He started wheeling the box into the entry and slipped the dolly out from under it as Jim approached the door with a skeptical frown.

"Just a second, Barbara." The delivery man offered the electronic device to Gordon for his signature, but the police captain frowned. "Who's it from?"

" _Even if the entire city of Gotham doesn't like the Batman for one reason or another, they will have to ask themselves why he exists in the first place."_

The brown jumpsuit shrugged. "I don't know, man. No return address, but it scanned clean…" He glanced past them at the hodge-podge of other boxes. "Looks like I delivered it just in time!"

Gordon smirked. "Yeah, uh, giving it another go with her mom."

"She's a doctor," supplied Barbara helpfully as she cut into the tape on the top of the box with a pair of small scissors. Gordon sighed and signed for the box, shaking his head.

"Best of luck with the move."

"Thanks," Gordon said gruffly, shutting the door behind the delivery guy. "Barbara, I wish you would have let me do that. We don't know where it came from—"

" _And in that moment you've become something more."_

* * *

"A hero?"

Alfred smiled proudly, but Bruce caught the pinch of sadness around his eyes that accompanied it as he pressed the remote to the fireplace into his palm.

* * *

"Dad!" Jim frowned and looked over her shoulder. She was shaking with excitement, clearing small peanuts off the top of the box's contents, eyes widening at the box-within-the-box. "It's…it's a brand new processor and server and like, a whole, what's this?"

Her hand shaking, she withdrew a glossy sheet of paper with an imposing black symbol emblazoned upon its grey background.

 _"A symbol, Master Wayne. A symbol that shines brighter than any letter on the side of a tall building ever could."_

The unmistakable bat-like shape silenced father and daughter as they stared at one another and the rest of the boxes went unheeded.

* * *

The day's last light trickled into the study from the west, clear oranges and soft pinks, as the night ascended in the east, rich cobalts and deep velvets, but Bruce's eyes were transfixed with the flickering flames of the fireplace, none of which could ever be described soft or rich, but violent and dangerous. His head rested against an arm on the front of the mantle, the remote to the cave below his feet clenched in his fist as he reflected upon Alfred's counsel.

He looked up from the fire, brow furrowing as he noticed a minute change in the pressure of the room as if a window were opened unbidden, but did not turn around right away. At the far end of the sofa, just inside the curtains of the window through which he'd stared during Alfred's speech that afternoon, Selina Kyle paused and stared at the straightened back of Bruce Wayne. She placed a hand on her hip, expectant that he would turn to greet her.

"I was wondering when you'd be by," he said into the fire, yet loud enough for her to hear.

"Well, are you going to show me or what…"

Her insinuation and defiant question hung between them for a moment. Bruce rubbed his thumb across the remote in his hand and carefully lowered his fist to rest along the seam of his trousers, the remote burning his palm as he turned, lips twitching towards a smirk identical to the one he knew she'd be sporting behind his back.

END

 **A/N:** A huge thank you to each and every reader that's stopped by along the way. I've had an absolute blast writing this over the last several months and it's helped me get through some incredibly difficult and unexpected personal challenges, the likes of which I never could have imagined when I started this back in November. I'd like to especially acknowledge **Byzinha** , **Amoenus** , and **East Coast Captain** for their support and for providing amazing feedback and discussion along the way that helped make this story better! The Gotham fandom is so vibrant...I'd be honored to play in it again if enough people speak out in favor!

I chose not to say anything regarding the structure of the epilogue ahead of time on purpose...hopefully the concept of a voice-over montage-type structure was easily readable and didn't seem cheap or off-tone.

So, please, if the mood strikes, leave a comment or two-I promise to respond. Thank you again, and until next time...


	26. Bonus Content

Okay so I thought this would be fun and maybe some of you all would find it interesting; moreover, it's a huge thank you from me to the amazing readers and writers that took the time to leave reviews and favorited this story and gave me amazing input and encouragement. Thank you so so much! Being in the cusp of triple digits in favs and follows is beyond what I could have ever imagined.

If there were other Easter eggs I may have left unintentionally, which is possible, PM me and let me know! No promises there aren't a couple obscure non-Batman and non-Gotham references in there as well. And if you want to, check out the sequel to Sins of Our Youth, Crumbling Under Sin, if you haven't already! I hope you like it as well!

Cheers!

Prologue:

-Dr. Thompkins' notes are the same details as Heath Ledger's first story of how his iconic Joker portrayal received his scars.

Chapter 1:

-Bullock references past cases and Batman rogues including Electrocutioner and Scarface

-Finnigan's is a GCPD-frequented bar from the comics

Chapter 2:

-The Institute of Art is highlighted as a target by the Clown Gang, just as it was a victim of vandalization in _Batman_ (1989)

-Jim's daughter is named Barbara, just as in the comics; however, she is also named after the Gotham character who, it is suggested, somehow redeemed herself between the events of Season 2 and story present day

-Barbara's school project has to do with a computer search program; in many continuities, Barbara Gordon eventually becomes Oracle, an ally of Batman who uses a much more advanced, but similar program, to feed him information

Chapter 4:

-Hugo Strange name dropped as Leslie's partner at her new clinic, although he is never formally introduced to Bruce

-Just as done repeatedly on 'Gotham', Bruce immediately assumes Selina attends the gala without an invitation

Chapter 5:

-In Gordon's speech he makes a comment about 'broken windows' being replaced. The broken windows theory suggests that one way to make a city safer is to start by fixing small things like broken windows first and making a city somewhere worth living rather than tackling major issues from the top down. It was a large motivation and inspiration for much of the efforts to transform New York City in the 1980s and 1990s

-Gordon refers to the new group of Strike Force members as 'Delta Unit,' implying there have two other previous iterations between 'Alpha Unit' seen in the early part of Season 2 and the story's present day

Chapter 6:

-Alfred refers to an attack on a school bus; Jerome was unable to successfully complete an attack on a school bus while part of the Maniax

Chapter 7:

-Bruce vaguely recognizes Harvey Dent; they only formally meet later on in the story

-Lyle Bolton on _Batman: The Animated Series_ becomes the villain Lock-up

-Alfred and Leslie's familiarity hints at their occasionally romantic relationship in some comic continuities

Chapter 8:

-The outfit Bruce is wearing while looking for Selina in The Narrows is a nod to his frequent wardrobe while masquerading as 'Matches Malone' doing undercover work in the mobs of Gotham, especially throughout _Batman: The Animated Series_

-The cat watching Selina's hide is named Isis, also a nod to _B:TAS_

Chapter 9:

-Barbara mentions reading articles in the _Daily Planet_ , the main newspaper of Metropolis, as well as the _Gazette_ , Gotham's primary newspaper

Chapter 10:

-Jim leads a rescue at Anders Prep, the same school Bruce attended during Seasons 1 and 2

-Selina and Bruce fight the Clown Gang at the The Flea, which they first visited together in Season 1

Chapter 11:

-Detective Alvarez makes a cameo

Chapter 12:

-Mention is made about the Gotham City Council considering building a wall around a particularly bad part of the city, a nod to the main plot conceit of the 'Batman: Arkham' video game series

-Selina refers to herself as 'number one,' just as she states to Bridgit, 'rule number one: look out for number one.'

-The first Strike Force member is found over a pit of hyenas; in some continuities, The Joker keeps pet hyenas

Chapter 13:

-The museum plaque states that the gemstones on display, from which Selina stole, were donated by the Marsh-Morton family, a group of wealthy British mercenaries in some Batman comics

Chapter 14:

-Jim mentions various other rogues while speaking aloud to Harvey: Tabitha and Theo Galavan, Penguin, Victor Fries

Chapter 15:

-Barbara Gordon mentions reading an op-ed by Lois Lane

-Jim calls Barbara 'little bird,' a nod to her potential future inclusion as a part of the 'birds of prey' superteam

-While not identified by name, the medical student coming to interview with Dr. Thompkins as Jim and Barbara leave is Harleen Quinzel

Chapter 16:

-The Gotham Clock Tower is usually known as one location for Oracle's hideout, but has also factored in other stories from various media

Chapter 19:

-News reporter Knox is a reference to a reporter of the same name from _Batman_ (1989)

Chapter 20:

-Gordon mentions Galavan's old penthouse was bought by Rupert Thorne, a recurring Batman baddie in many continuities

-Bruce makes a crack about The Joker having a flair for the theatrical, the same comment made by Jim Gordon at the very end of _Batman Begins_ (2005)

Epilogue:

-I mean, basically it's a massive set of Easter Eggs and foreshadowing, so...


End file.
